


What Looks Like Crazy

by akamarykate



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Community: smallfandombang, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3802417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/pseuds/akamarykate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man who thinks he's a superhero makes repeat appearances in Gary's paper, and Gary's efforts to help him turn into trouble for them both. Toni and Marissa, who are anything but sidekicks, join forces to save the day. </p><p>(Contains adult language and relationships, violence, and discussions of mental health issues.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Looks Like Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place post-series, so spoilers for everything abound. It follows [And Baby Makes Three](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1464544/chapters/3085657), and there are a few references to that story here, but you don't have to have read it for this to make sense. All you really need to know is that Gary and Toni are in the early stages of an established relationship, and are trying to figure out how to make it work. 
> 
> Massive thanks to Jayne L., beta reading superhero, who saves me from my own weird tics and tangled thinking more often than she even realizes. Any errors that remain in the text are all mine.
> 
> I am ridiculously excited to have a partner in SFBB; thank you to Skylar Grace for the[ amazing art!](http://skylar0grace.livejournal.com/252725.html)

_What looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.  
~ Pearl Cleage_

"No. No way. I'm staying right here." Manny Cabrerra shook his head of thinning but still dark hair. He reached across the booth and nabbed the spoon Gary hadn't touched, then waved it in the air to make some kind of point. "Drug deal going down. I have to stop it."

Gary picked at the chipped veneer of the table and glanced out the window, gathering what little patience he had left. October rain pounded the glass, blurring his view of Logan Square. The rain had been coming down for three days straight, stubborn as the man who sat across the booth from him. "I'm telling you, Manny, this is out of your jurisdiction. Why don't you come over to my place, let me buy you an early dinner? We can figure out the best way to handle this." The only way to handle it, as far as Gary was concerned, was to get Manny and himself out of Dharma Brew before any shooting started. Which, according the paper on the booth seat next to him, would be in about twenty minutes. The upscale coffee shop seemed like an odd spot for a midday robbery, but he'd witnessed stranger things. He didn't want to be around for this one. 

Manny stacked the salt shaker on top of the square glass container full of sweetener packets, then propped the spoon against them. "I have it under control."

"Control? Last Tuesday I hauled you out of a dumpster that was about to get picked up by a garbage truck. Friday I helped you find a lost hamster in Grant Park. Now you've graduated to tracking down drug dealers?"

"Yup. " Manny patted the giant red "W" on his black t-shirt, just above the slight paunch of his stomach. "Wonder Man is on the case."

Gary was going to regret the answer, he knew it, but he asked anyway. "Wonder Man?"

"He's one of the Avengers." Manny balanced a knife on top of the salt shaker and turned the tower so the blade pointed at Gary. "He started out as an investor who owned a munitions factory, right? But he embezzled all this money and was sent to prison..."

Manny twisted and turned his tower, keeping the knife aimed just over Gary's left shoulder, while he outlined a plot more convoluted than any soap opera. Good thing they'd taken a back booth. The coffee shop was full of people, most of them dressed the way Gary used to back when he'd had an office job. But the place was arranged so the small, high-backed booths kept customers from watching each other. Gary wasn't embarrassed by Manny and his superhero obsessions. He just didn't want the guy, who seemed helpful if not exactly harmless, to be subject to the judgment of a bunch of yuppies. Except for the superhero delusions, he seemed like a fairly nice guy. So why did he keep ending up in the paper?

"It's luck of the draw," Gary had said when he'd told Marissa about it that morning. "This guy ends up in the middle of trouble a lot. He keeps telling me he has to save the world." 

Marissa had snorted and said something under her breath that ended with, "...two peas in a pod." Gary'd known she had a point, but he hadn't had time to argue it out with her. Sure, Manny was a little off, but he didn't deserve to end up dead because of it.

Gary scanned the crowded coffee shop for possible shooters. The paper hadn't said anything about a drug deal, just that Emmanuel Cabrerra, fifty-four, was going to be hit by a stray bullet when police attempted to arrest someone else. He'd assumed it would be a robbery attempt, but it had proven even more impossible to get the kid at the counter to believe him and shut the place down than to order a cup of plain black coffee instead of some giant latte that tasted like a scented candle. 

"...and then he was supposed to use his new super powers to sabotage the Avengers, but he reformed, and he gave up his own life to keep them from being attacked, " Manny went on, ceaseless as the rain. "But nobody really dies in comic books, so he was brought back and..." 

Gary was torn between wanting to hustle Manny out of Dharma Brew and lingering a minute or two longer. He'd barely had time to breathe between stories the past few days, let alone sip at a nice hot cup of coffee. 

Over at the counter, one of the baristas fired up a blender while another heated milk with a steam wand, creating so much noise Gary could barely hear Manny. The fancy coffee drinks most of these people wanted weren't merely expensive. They were loud as hell.

What was wrong with black coffee? Toni called him a throwback for liking it. It was on a list of reasons she had that included seventy-five percent of his wardrobe and his refusal to get a cell phone and--

\--and why was he thinking of Toni right now? Probably because the paper said the police were going to show up for this shooting, whatever the cause. Maybe he should have called her about it, but last time they'd gone out, well over a week ago, she'd told him it might be better for their relationship if he didn't come to her with every crime in the paper. "Just because I know about it, that doesn't make it my problem," she'd said. "I do have cases of my own." Gary knew that was true, just like he knew she'd been taking a lot of guff from her partner and the rest of the guys she worked with for dating him. He didn't want to add to the other list she was no doubt compiling: the list of reasons why them being together was a bad idea. So he'd backed off as far as their jobs went. Problem was, their jobs took up most of their waking hours.

Today was a perfect example. So far he'd stopped a kid from getting hit by a school bus, retrieved a stamp collection meant to fund an elderly couple's retirement from a Goodwill truck, and nearly had his arm ripped off when he'd gone after a purse snatcher. He'd saved the woman's bag, but not the strap, and the thief had gotten away, which meant Gary would probably have another run-in with him in a few days. He'd ended up with an aching, nearly dislocated shoulder and no thanks at all. "This is Gucci! It's worth more than anything in it!" the woman had wailed. 

He hadn't forgotten Lucius Snow's letter, with its admonition to take time to build a life for himself, but days like today it was hard not to think the paper was making it tough just to test him, to see how far he'd go for that life. Well, he wasn't giving up. He wasn't going to end up like Manny if he could help it.

"...so then he had to clear his name, because it turned out his brother was the one doing all the bad things, just like..."

Tonight, Gary thought, as he rubbed his shoulder and waited for Manny to reach a stopping point. He'd get this perpetual thorn in his side somewhere safe, and then he'd call Toni and--well, and then they'd go from there. 

"He was one of the founding members of the West Coast Avengers!" Manny said with a flourish of a sugar packet. He tore it open and sprinkled a few grains on the knife blade. "We have a lot in common, Wonder Man and me."

"That's great," Gary jumped in, "but you haven't been doused in radiation or bitten by a spider, have you?"

"No, he didn't have any radiation. Baron Zemo ionized him."

"Sure he did." Gary pushed the structure to the side so he could look Manny in the eye. Manny grabbed at the wobbling tower. "But the point is, nobody's given you any super powers, so can we go before these bad guys show up and find out you're vulnerable to their bullets?"

"They're already here." Manny leaned over his tower, holding it together. "That's what this receiver is for, to pick up their conversation." He nodded toward the booth directly behind Gary. "That one's been coming here for a week now. Today he's making a deal. He's going to give her bad drugs for her ladies. Like Zemo did to Wonder Man."

Was the shooting because of a drug deal, and not a robbery gone wrong? Gary pulled out of the range of Manny's coffee-and-stale-gum breath. "You know what, I believe you, and that's why we need to get out of here and call the police." 

Manny shook his head. "Tried that. They don't believe me anymore. But I can do this, just like I found Mrs. Rossi's hamster."

"You only survived that because I pulled you out of the sewer drain!"

"Today's different. I wore my lucky shirt." 

"Manny, you're not a superhero." Exhausted as he was, Gary felt his heart rate pick up as they hit the five-minute window. "Trust me, it's not nearly as fun as it's cracked up to be."

Over at the counter, the blender roared to life again. Manny leaned in, beckoning Gary closer. "I've got a great idea. You can be my sidekick."

Gary shook his head. Manny had had the same idea for a couple weeks now, but from what Gary remembered from his days reading comics, sidekicks tended to get kidnapped. Or killed. This close to the shooting, he didn't want to look at the paper and find out he'd joined Manny on the front page. "I'm telling you, we need to go. I know you've helped some people in the past, and you're usually pretty good at it, but this time--"

"Saved." Manny got the same lost, longing look that had kept Gary coming back to help him for almost a month, even when it wasn't life or death. "I've _saved people_. And I have to save the ladies from the bad drugs." He tapped the knife with his stubby finger. "Listen!"

"No, _you_ listen. We have to get out of here." Behind the counter, the blender shut off suddenly. So did Gary, when he heard a female voice-- a really damn _familiar_ female voice--from the booth behind them.

"--supply my very wealthy, very needy clientele."

"Wait!" Manny cautioned, but Gary swung out of the booth so fast Manny's tower fell down and the paper slid to the floor. 

A male voice laced with a growl said, "Whatever they need, I can supply it." 

Gary didn't look to see who the man was. The shocked, angry expression on the woman's over-makeupped face--not to mention the bright suit and the impossibly big hairdo--drove most of the air from his gut. He had barely enough left to choke out her name. "To--"

"Excuse me," she said archly, recovering first. "This is a private conversation." She picked up a mug and glared at him over its rim. The man sitting across from her--thin, with a blond crew cut and an expensive suit--narrowed his eyes as he looked from Toni to Gary and back. 

Undercover, Gary's brain spat out. She was undercover, and whatever she was doing, he was about to ruin it. "To-toenail," he stuttered, and gave a little hop to make it convincing. Her jaw dropped. "I was just going to the bathroom and I--I stubbed my toe, I --sorry. Ma'am." He should have walked--or hopped--away, but he couldn't. He wasn't fooling anyone, and Toni was sitting right there in the coffee shop. Undercover.

Where something terrible was about to happen.

The man narrowed his eyes and scanned the shop; his sharp gaze landed back on Gary. "Ignore him," Toni said in a voice that was not entirely her own. Move, Gary thought, but he couldn't. The man reached under the table; so did Toni. "Do we have a deal?" she asked, saccharine-sweet.

"Not until you tell me what the hell is going on," he growled. His hand moved out from under the table, and Gary just had time to register the black shape in it before the world went sideways. 

"Gun!" Manny shouted in his ear. He'd caught Gary in a flying tackle; they crashed into a table and then to the floor. Glass containers shattered, spraying sugar and cream into Gary's face while arrows of pain shot from his shoulder and down his back. Screams from the other customers were muffled by Manny, who'd landed on top of Gary. Gary fought to get out from under him, to protect him as a shot rang out above them, pinging off one of the pendant lamps. Gary scooted back toward their booth, hauling Manny along with him.

"Chicago PD!" _That_ was the voice Gary knew, the take-charge cop he'd known for two years. When Gary dared to look up, Detective Antonia Brigatti had the blond guy bent over the counter and was snapping handcuffs on him. "You have the right--

"You fucking bitch!"

"You can't talk to a lady that way!" Manny struggled to get out of Gary's hold. "Not while Wonder Man is on the case!" There were cuts on his face, and his eyes were wild. Gary let him go, figuring the worst was over if Brigatti had the drug dealer cuffed. Manny struggled to his feet. Gary sat up and saw just how wrong he was.

They were surrounded by four sets of men's loafers, which were attached to legs wearing slightly rumpled dress slacks, attached to...Gary looked up, and his stomach sank. 

Attached to cops. Cops like Toni's partner, Winslow. Two others Gary didn't know. And Paul Armstrong, who wasn't quite pointing his gun at Gary--but he wasn't _not_ pointing it in his direction, either. 

"Everybody okay?" Gary choked out.

"Why are you here?" Armstrong ground the words like coffee beans. No one reached down to help Gary up, though one of the guys Gary didn't know led Manny away.

"I was having coffee with my friend." Gary put a hand on the floor to push himself up, only to have his palm speared by a shard of glass. He pulled his hand into his lap and sat down, back against the booth. "My friend Manny over there, and then I--"

"Stubbed your toe." The ring of loafers and slacks parted to make way for a pair of heels--sharp stiletto heels that could probably dig new holes in him with just a little bit of pressure. "And blew my cover."

"Toni, I didn't know." He dared to look up; her eyes were cloudier and darker than the October sky outside. Too late, he realized what he'd said, and in front of whom. "Detective Brigatti. I'm sorry."

"You got nothing on me," the drug dealer shouted. "Nothing! I want my lawyer!"

Armstrong whispered something in Toni's ear, and her gaze snapped over to Winslow. "Find out what they know." She marched back to the counter, barking out orders to the others to take statements from the rest of the witnesses and send them on their way.

Winslow tilted his head toward a table on the opposite end of the coffee shop, where Manny sat waving happily. Resisting the urge to pull the paper out from under the booth, Gary got to his feet and followed Winslow. He felt Armstrong's unrelenting gaze on his back almost as sharply as he felt Toni deliberately not looking at him at all.

Winslow pointed to a chair next to Manny's, but Gary didn't sit. He wanted to grab Toni and find out what the hell was going on and how badly he'd messed things up --wanted that almost as much as he wanted to duck out of the shop so they could pretend it hadn't happened. The one thing he didn't want was to talk to Winslow, who stood tapping a pen against a small notebook. 

"What's the story this time, Hobson?" One corner of Winslow's mouth twisted up, and Gary knew the notes he was about to take were as much for his arsenal of stuff to give Toni shit about as they were for the incident report. "How did you know to be here?"

"I didn't. I was just talking to my friend here, trying to get him home. Emmanuel Cabrerra," he added for the benefit of Winslow's notes. "He's a little--" Gary waggled a finger by his temple. Winslow raised his eyebrows. "More than usual, if you know what I mean," Gary added. 

Winslow broke into a full-on smirk. "Oh, boy, do I. You didn't know we had the place staked out?"

"How would I know that?" He grabbed a handful of napkins from the table and pressed them to the cut in his hand, which was still bleeding.

"Maybe because you and Brigatti have been knocking heels for the past—"

"Hey." Gary took a step toward Winslow. "You don't want to go there. And no, I did not know. Your partner doesn't go around spilling details of her undercover operations."

"I know all about them," Manny chimed in, breaking up the staredown between Gary and Winslow. "Well, about him, I guess. He's been dealing drugs out of this shop for two weeks. I've had my eye on him. Saw her with him yesterday. Said she was a spa owner. But she's a cop, huh? Secret identity?"

Winslow finally frowned. He waved a hand at the scene behind him. "Yeah, and you guys blew it."

The criticism didn't seem to affect Manny at all. "Hey, Gary, are you a cop, too?" he asked hopefully.

Winslow snorted. Gary curled his hand around the blood-spotted napkin. Toni'd been warning him for months now against interfering in her work, about adding to the amount of crap she took for dating a guy who'd once been CPD's most wanted and had one of the fattest files in their archives. He'd been so careful about keeping the paper from coming between them, and in one stupid, frantic moment, he'd blown it, exposed her not only to the criminal she'd been trying to stop, but to the ridicule of guys like Winslow. She could handle it, Gary had seen her do it, but now he'd ensured she'd have to handle it _again_ while trying to salvage an arrest. Didn't take a detective to figure out how she'd feel about him now. 

"So you just happened to be here? You weren't looking for a date?" The wicked grin flitted across Winslow's face again. "Or a nooner?"

Sometimes Gary wondered if Winslow was trying to get himself punched. Or to get Gary thrown into jail for hitting a cop. "I was over at the park. I saw Manny walk in here and came over to talk to him. Like I said, he's a friend of mine."

"Gary's my sidekick," Manny confided.

"This just gets better and--"

"Can it, Winslow," Toni snapped from just behind Gary. Her undercover getup was still throwing him off, especially her unmoving, upswept hair. He was used to playing with that hair, tucking it over her ear before he leaned in for a kiss, but there was nothing in her expression that invited kissing now. Behind her, a uniformed cop lead the handcuffed drug dealer out of the coffee shop. The baristas and most of the other customers--the ones who hadn't been cops--had been shuffled to the other end of the shop to give their statements.

He looked down at Toni, though not as far down as usual. The heels she was wearing brought her almost to eye level with him. The look she was giving him, loaded with things she couldn't say in front of anyone else, was part danger, part curiosity, and entirely exasperated. She had to know he'd seen something in the paper, but he couldn't tell her what until he could get her alone. It wasn't anything that could go on an official witness statement. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were here. Or that a drug deal was going on, or--or anything." 

"He actually doesn't seem to have known much," Winslow said. "This guy seems like a better bet."

"Manny." Manny jumped to his feet and held out a hand. Toni just looked at it. "But you can call me Wonder Man." 

Winslow shot Toni a raised eyebrow. "Manny here says he's seen Hennepin in the shop all week." He waved a hand between Gary and Manny, looking a little too eager for Gary's comfort. "Should we take them both in?"

Toni glanced at Manny. "He was in here yesterday. I want to know what he knows. But him?" She shifted her gaze and stared at Gary for an endless, cold moment. Tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. "Turn him loose. We have more important things to deal with."

* * *

Despite the fall rain turning the evening dark too quickly, her utter lack of coat or umbrella, and the sodden newspaper in her cold hands, Toni hesitated outside McGinty's. She had a perfectly good reason for being there. Two of them, actually, and barely enough time to deal with either one. 

But first she had to shake off the persona of Louisa Penrose, luxury spa owner and drug provider to northside Trixies. Shake off the whiplash she'd experienced when she'd been forced to go from spa maven to cop in the heartbeat it had taken Hobson to stutter out a lie about his toenail. Shake off her nagging fear that his damn magic paper was going to make it impossible for their relationship to get any kind of traction amidst the chaos of their professional lives. 

Okay, _her_ professional life. Hobson's life was anything but professional. She was probably sabotaging her own by wasting the short break she had standing in the rain debating with herself. Half an hour, forty-five minutes tops, before she had to be back at the station. Enough time to change out of her undercover outfit and maybe inhale a sandwich. 

Not nearly enough time to deal with Hobson.

He might have cost her an arrest, depending on how slick Hennepin's lawyer turned out to be. "Weeks of planning shot to hell because Hobson couldn't keep his nose out of our business," Paul had griped as they'd left Dharma Brew. She could handle Winslow's juvenile amusement, but Paul's frustration was worse. Because he was right.

Because here she was, soaked and shivering and pissed and opening the door to Hobson's bar. Drawn to the guy like a damn magnet.

But she'd made her choice when she'd told Winslow she needed to take a break while they ran Hennepin through booking. They all had ways of throwing off their undercover personas; Winslow was used to her walking it off. She slipped into the foyer and shook rain out of her hair and off the shoulders of the gaudy, ridiculous suit. 

She spotted Hobson in a corner at the end of the longer of the two bars, talking to Marissa. He had his back to the room, which was unusual. Most of the time he watched the floor, checking the customers to make sure nobody was drinking too much or getting too rowdy. It struck her, and stopped her, that maybe he'd been a little rattled by the bust gone wrong. Not as much as her case had, obviously, but even from behind he looked off. 

It was partly in his posture, hunched over whatever he was drinking, his hand coming up to massage the opposite shoulder. It was partly--it was a lot--in the way Marissa reached past her stacks of Braille books and a laptop to put a tentative hand on his arm, her brow puckered in concern. 

As she neared the bar, five-inch heels sending flashes of pain all the way up her back, Toni caught a couple friendly smiles from the wait staff. She held up a hand to stop the bartender--AJ--from alerting his bosses to her presence. Though Toni didn't have a lot of time, and was too damn cold and dripping to give Hobson's woes much consideration, she was curious to know what they were talking about. AJ pointed to a row of wineglasses on the shelf behind him, eyebrows raised. She shook her head. He winked and went back to the tap. 

McGinty's staff always granted their bosses privacy, gently shooing anyone away from their end of the bar when they had their heart-to-hearts like this. Toni had noticed it earlier that summer, when she and Hobson first started moving out of the wary orbits they'd danced around each other for so long. Now she was allowed into that circle, as if the staff knew that Toni knew what it was they didn't know. She would have to ask Hobson, when she wasn't totally pissed at him, how he'd managed to assemble such a discreet, respectful, crew. 

And whether she could hire them all out to CPD to replace some of the guys in the bullpen, like her partner. 

_Especially_ her partner.

She moved as close as she dared, hoping Marissa wouldn't hear her wobbling on the ridiculous heels. Or her shivering.

"Is it so bad this Manny guy was at the coffee shop?" Marissa was asking. "He did push you out of the way of the shooting, after all."

"There wouldn't have been any shooting, and I wouldn't have been in the middle of it, if he hadn't been there!"

Toni swallowed a snort. From where she was standing, there was one, and only one, person responsible for the mess her case had turned into. 

"Seems like Manny's fairly good at sensing when things are going to go wrong, whoever he is." Marissa pulled away from him a bit and took a sip from her water glass. "Look, I'm glad you're back, because I need--"

"He wasn't so good at it this time," Hobson said. "The paper said he would have been killed, and he'd been stalking that drug dealer for days. As it was, he had to go down to headquarters and be interrogated by a bunch of people who aren't happy with him at all. And I tell you what, I don't think Toni was planning to let me go, either, until her partner started giving me grief about us, and then she couldn't send me out of there fast enough."

"Well, you did ruin her operation. Gary, do you have time--" Marissa broke off again when Reilly, who'd been sitting next to her stool, caught sight of Toni and stood, tail wagging against Marissa's leg. "What is it, boy?"

"I didn't ruin anything!" Hobson muttered. He slumped so far over the bar he practically had his head down on it. "It was going to hell with or without me. She was making a drug deal with a guy who had a loaded gun in his pocket. And I don't mean that metaphorically."

Marissa's mouth worked. Toni had the feeling she did that a lot, picking the words Hobson needed to hear instead of what she really wanted to say. "What I meant was, when you look at it from her point of view, you seem just as unstable as--"

"Don't say it." Hobson sat up straight, slammed his hand on the bar. Marissa jumped. "I am not crazy!"

"I wouldn't use that word."

"I would." It came out more sharply than Toni intended, and it certainly had an effect. Hobson jumped off the stool and faced her, cradling his hand against his stomach. There were tight lines around his mouth, which meant he was in physical pain. Great.

"Toni! I was just--uh--" He faltered under her glare, looking back to Marissa, who sat there with a grim smile, as if she could read Toni by the two words she'd said. The last thing Toni wanted was to be under scrutiny from both of them at once.

"Your office. Now." She spun away, trying to hide the wobble induced by the spiked heels with quick steps.

"Good luck," she heard Marissa say, in a tone that meant she figured Hobson would have anything but.

Anger and shivers carried Toni through the maze of tables, booths, and curious staff to the office door. She whipped it open without waiting for Hobson to do it for her. Except for Marissa's tightly organized desk, the room was its usual crowded mess. Toni's long, borrowed earrings hit her cheeks as she swung round to face Hobson, her back to the filing cabinet. 

His Adam's apple bobbed a couple of times before he asked, "How's Manny?" 

"I'll ask the questions, Hobson." She snapped it out, letting him know she was using his last name for a reason. "What the _hell_ were you doing in that coffee shop?"

"The paper said--" He broke off when she thrust the newspaper at him, spraying drops of rain on his shirt. He took it, peeled it open, and looked compulsively at the headline about the arrest in a Logan Square coffee shop. Toni felt a tiny pang of guilt at the sight of the gauze bandage wrapped around his hand. "It said Manny was about to die."

Which explained what he'd been there to do, but not why he'd botched the execution. "So you inserted yourself into my undercover operation? Nobody would have even drawn a gun if you hadn't stumbled in like that."

"That's not true. Look, you know how this thing works. You've seen it. What if you were the one who was about to shoot an innocent bystander?" He tossed the paper onto crap pile that was his desk.

She wouldn't have shot Manny Cabrerra. Hennepin might have, though. Under the coral silk of her suit jacket, a whole new set of goosebumps popped onto her arms, right on top of the ones that were already there. It was hard to intimidate Hobson when the cold and wet that had gone right to her core kept jerking her body as if she were a puppet. The furry warmth that wrapped around her ankle only made the rest of her shiver harder. She made a move to shake the cat away from her leg and nearly toppled over. Hobson put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "I can't deal with that thing right now."

Hobson picked up the cat, walked around the divider, and sent it out to the bar. She supposed it was less of a health code violation than sending it to the kitchen. "Go find Marissa," he told the cat, and came back to her. 

She pulled her arms around herself to keep from shaking right out of her shoes. "Who is this Cabrerra guy, anyway?"

"He's been in the paper off and on for a few weeks. He wants to be a superhero. He wants to fight crime." He half-sat on the edge of the desk. Some of the tight lines around his mouth eased. "I know he looks kinda nuts, but his heart's in the right place."

Great. He'd gone soft on the guy. "You think Cabrerra looks nuts? What do you think you look like to everyone I work with? What do you think _I_ look like when the guy I'm dating keeps showing up at my crime scenes?"

"I've been trying, I swear, but sometimes I can't help it. I have to go where the paper points me." His eyes went round, pleading, almost green. "Do you wish you didn't know about the paper?"

"No!" She shifted against the filing cabinet. A handle dug into the small of her back. "I just wish you wouldn't keep showing up and shoving it in my face while I'm trying to work."

"I didn't--" He took a good look at her and gulped. "Look, Toni, I'm sorry. I know I messed up, but it's not like I even knew you'd be there. If we'd been able to play it cool--"

" _I_ played it cool. You were the one who gaped at me like some kind of schoolboy and then started stuttering. 'To-to-toenail,'" she spat out, deepening her voice in a piss-poor imitation of his. "That's the best you could do?"

"I swear, I didn't know you were there!"

"Why couldn't you just keep that nutcase Cabrerra out of the coffee shop? My operation wouldn't have been blown, and we wouldn't have less than a day before we have to turn Hennepin loose to deal more drugs and track down his wife. She's too scared of him coming after her to testify against him--" Hobson flinched at that. "--and now he knows we're on to him so he's going to be even harder to catch if he walks tomorrow." She picked at the giant rhinestone button on her cuff. "I got dressed up in this ridiculous getup, not to mention the world's most uncomfortable shoes, for nothing."

"If the story in the paper had said anything about you, I would have called you, or--I don't know. Something so you didn't get hurt, or make a mistake." He broke off when her whole body shook with a shiver she couldn't control. "You okay?"

"I don't make mistakes. I can't afford them." When she made mistakes, people died. Bad guys went free. Falling off the thin rail between undercover operative and cop into sappy, needy girlfriend was definitely a mistake here. She had to stay pissed. She pulled the earrings off and slammed them onto the filing cabinet. 

He grabbed a Bears sweatshirt off the coat hook and held it out to her. "Here, get yourself out of that wet jacket."

"It's not your job to step in and play Superman." Ignoring his offering, she bent over to take off the heels. The ribbon-thin strap around her ankle broke when she pulled at the first one. "And now I have to pay for this damn thing." She threw the shoe at him. It bounced off his chest. 

He grabbed it reflexively and stared down at it with a horrified expression, as if he'd recognized it for the torture device it was. "Toni, I'm sorry, I mean it. I'll pay for your shoes." Now he looked angry and scared, damn him. Like she was going to pull out a gun and shoot him. Or shoot down their relationship, which he always seemed to be afraid of. She'd hoped sparring with him would be the release valve she needed to come back to herself, almost as much as she needed to shed the damn costume. But she'd gone too far, and she'd scared him. 

Or maybe it was the price of the shoes. "They're knock-offs," she told him. "If they were real Jimmy Choos, I'd be getting a negative paycheck for the next couple months."

"Jimmy Who? Look, I don't care, I'll get it fixed, or get you new ones."

"That's not the point." She didn't know how to wipe the scared look off his face, so she concentrated on balancing on one heel while she peeled off the wet suit jacket. 

"I kinda thought the point was that I used the paper to save the life of an innocent civilian." There it was, the note of righteousness that meant he was warming up. The suit jacket stuck on her elbows. He reached in and helped tug it off. "At least this way you have your guy in custody, and you know, nobody died."

"That's your measure of a good day on the job? 'Nobody died'?"

He draped the sweatshirt around her shoulders. "Isn't it yours?"

"My job is a lot more complicated than that."

"And you're really good at it. Like I said, I'm sorry if I complicated what you were doing, but I had a life to save. Can you at least give me credit for doing that?"

"'If' you complicated it? _If_?" She stuck a finger in his face. He leaned back. "I may not be able to put this guy away because of you and I swear, Hobson, if I can't--" She lost her balance, grabbed his arm to keep from going down, and the warmth under her hand sent a whole new set of shivers coursing through her. 

"Don't twist your ankle." His expression shifted to pure concern, pure Hobson. "You're gonna kill yourself in those heels. That heel."

"Shut up, Nostradamus." He was so close, so warm, such an idiot. Or maybe she was the idiot, for what happened next. Before she had time to think about or even realize what she was doing, she kissed him, trying to pull as much warmth out of him as she could.

He started, pulled back a fraction to look her in the eyes. He did that a lot, as if he was checking to see if whatever they were doing was a mistake; as if he wanted it so much he didn't trust himself around her. When she followed, using the height the one heel gave her to lean in and capture his lips, begging for warmth, he responded immediately, kissing her back with an urgency that was even more intense than her own. He radiated warmth and steadiness, while she tottered and shivered, holding onto his shirt sleeve for dear life.

"Damn it, Gary," she whispered when they took a break. She let herself nestle into the space between his shoulder and sternum, just for a minute, just until she was warm. He started pulling the bobby pins that Regina in vice had used to craft her French roll from her wet hair, one by one. "I don't have time for this." And she wanted to stay angry at him, at someone; to keep the fire and energy she'd need to fuel her through the hours of work waiting for her.

"Then why'd you come here?" He slipped his hand--the one that wasn't bandaged--under the sweatshirt and brushed at her shoulder, bringing up goosebumps on goosebumps on goosebumps.

"If I knew that, they'd make me detective first class." She sighed. "I came here to get changed. Your place is closer to the coffee shop than mine. My extra clothes still upstairs?"

"Right where you left them last time." When she'd spent the night, like she had a handful of times lately; when everything had seemed a lot more possible than it did after what had just gone down. Why had she ever thought she wanted to be anywhere but here, where she was warm, where just his arm wrapped around her waist to cushion her from the file cabinet's handle and his lips barely brushing her collarbone were doing ridiculous things to her insides? 

And to her judgment. She leaned back into his hand and pulled him into another kiss.

When they finished, the corners of his mouth twisted into a hopeful grin. "So you're not mad anymore?"

"Oh, I'm still plenty mad." She tilted her head back, resting it against the top drawer of the file cabinet. She couldn't go back to work like this, with evidence of exactly what Winslow had accused her of in her disheveled clothes and hair. "But I don't have time to discuss it with you, let alone derail it with--" She traced a finger over his jaw because she knew it made him crazy, as crazy as he'd made her, showing up in the middle of her sting. "--your shenanigans." 

With that, she pushed off from him, back into the shivering cold. 

She heard him let out a long, deep rush of breath as she hobbled upstairs, pulling out the rest of the bobby pins in handfuls. Regina must have stuck at least a hundred in there. How did people--especially the kind of woman she'd been pretending to be--do this to themselves every day? 

More importantly, how was she walking away from whatever it was that had just happened? And why the hell had she walked into it in the first place?

The loft was a picture of half-hearted disarray: old newspapers stacked by a window, a trail of discarded clothes from the bed to the bathroom, a scattering of dirty dishes on the stainless steel breakfast bar. She didn't even want to know how many hairballs had collected under the furniture, especially since she'd stopped having allergic reactions to the cat. 

She checked the alarm clock by his bed, the same model she'd had in junior high. Fifteen minutes to change; twenty if she called a cab. A set of her clothes were folded neatly on the top shelf of his armoire. He'd made a space for her. A handful of nights spent at his place, almost as many at hers, and he'd designated shelf space for her clothes. The newspaper wasn't the only dangerous thing about him.

Clothes, but not shoes. Her spares were in her desk drawer, where she'd stashed them hours ago. She'd have to put the torture heels on again to get to the office. Probably be easier to go barefoot. She sat down on the edge of the bed to take off the other shoe and got mad all over again, thinking about the broken strap and how that would come out of her paycheck along with dry cleaning for the awful suit. 

Putting on her own clothes--grey slacks, a pale cotton shirt with three-quarter sleeves, and a red cardigan--made her feel human again. Until she went into the bathroom to use the mirror and ended up staring at her own questioning face. What was she doing here, and why would Hobson want this mess? When she'd thought about having a relationship, this was part of what she'd wanted. Someone she could come home to, for relative definitions of home. Something she could hold onto when a day went ass-up and no one, not even her partner, would cut her slack. How had she ended up with the one person who was most likely to cause those problems in the first place?

When had she reached the point of needing Hobson?

One false eyelash was loose. She ripped them both off, grabbed a washcloth and went to work on her face, scrubbing until it was just her, scowling and dark-eyed, wrinkles starting at the corners of her eyes and her hair half-slumped out of the roll. Regina's giant dose of hairspray made it nearly impossible to get a brush through it, but she managed a decent ponytail. She just had it wrangled when Hobson knocked. 

Even though it was his own place, he waited for her, "Come in" before he opened the door. He was carrying a plate with a sandwich and a steaming mug of tea. The coral jacket was hooked over his arm. "Marissa said she thought you might be hungry, and she has a thing about tea."

Toni didn't waste any time grabbing the food and tea. She did her best to ignore the jolt of electricity that sparked when their hands touched. There was. No. Time. She took the food to the stainless steel island that served as both kitchen counter and table. "Thank her for me," she said through a mouthful of roast beef and bun. 

He went to the armoire and came out with a hanger, over which he draped the suit jacket. "You said this was expensive and it looked expensive, and I thought you'd want--I mean, you can put the skirt on it, too." He twirled the clips with one of his long fingers. 

"I know how hangers work." She swallowed a last bite of the sandwich and gulped down the tea, scorching her throat. It felt amazing. Hobson had the skirt on the hanger by the time she turned around. He was watching her carefully, wary.

"Look, I know I'm being kind of prickly here, but I'm coming off an undercover job. I have to shift gears and get back to work, and as much as I would like to stay, I really do have to go."

"You want to stay?"

"Of course I do."

A step closer. "Really?"

"Really. But I can't."

He took her elbow, bent down--which he had to do, now that the shoes were off--and kissed her. "Promise you'll come back?"

"Mmm-hmmm." She was interrupted by the cat, who jumped onto the sofa and meowed, pawing at Hobson's back pocket. He closed his eyes and let out a quick sigh for half a second, then reached for the newspaper he'd stashed back there. "Duty calls?" she asked.

"Not mine. Yours." He held out a page, damp and half-torn, for her to read. "I'm about to be really sorry again, aren't I?"

She made a shushing motion at him while she read. At first glance, it did look bad. Hennepin was going to be released on bail by morning and found dead a few hours later. But he would be found in a storage locker down on the south side at O'Reardon's Store It Yourself. 

"Irish mob," she muttered. 

"How's that?"

"If that's where Hennepin's found, he's been running drugs for Mike O'Reardon. I thought he was a solo act. O'Reardon's supposed to be one of the up-and-comers in the Irish mob, which means he's Teflon, but if we can get there before he takes out Hennepin--" She broke off, grabbed the suit and the shoe, and headed for the door. "We can use the guy as bait, cut him a deal."

"Toni?" She turned around. Gary'd followed her and stood close, eyes wide and paper in hand. The paper that had just launched her case from lost cause to mob bust. She tried, and probably failed, to keep her face stony. This was the problem. Thanks to his magic paper, he always redeemed himself and got what he wanted. But the only reason he got it was because she wanted it, too.

"I have to take care of this," she said. He nodded, but his lips twisted in disappointment. "I'll be back. So you can make it up to me."

A hesitant smile teased at his face. He cupped the back of her head, sending warmth from the nape of her neck down to her bare toes. "Yes, ma'am. Understood."

She leaned for a moment, resting her head against his chest so at least her ear was warm. "I thought we were going to make this work," he mumbled into her hair.

"I thought so, too." She pulled back and looked up at him. "We will. But it isn't easy. You aren't easy."

He pushed a stray tendril of her hair behind her ear. "Is it worth the work?"

She hadn't thought so, once. She hadn't thought so an hour ago, when he'd tipped all her plans upside down. But now she looked past him, at the cat still watching them from the top of the sofa. "I'll let you know once we catch the bad guys."

* * *

"Marissa?" Sarah's voice came from just inside the office door.

"Come on in." Marissa took off her headphones and stopped the recording of her Clinical Psych text. "Have you counted the deposit from the lunch rush?"

"Twice, just like you asked." Sarah sounded a little breathless. "I filled out the bank slip and it's all here in the pouch." She handed it to Marissa, who weighed it in her hands, though that didn't mean a whole lot. It didn't matter; Sarah had been with them for a couple of years, and Marissa trusted her with duties that should have rightfully gone to a manager. "They're still working on cleanup, but it should be taken care of long before happy hour rolls around."

"How bad is the mess?" Every time Marissa had ventured out to the floor, she'd been hit by a wave of noise: voices, laughter, clinking silverware and glasses. It meant good business, but it also meant a lot of work for everyone involved.

"Pretty bad. Foggy day, people are looking for shelter and soup. Cracker crumbs everywhere. But Carrie and Tim are taking care of the tables. You know us, we're a well-oiled machine."

"That's true." It often felt like a machine on the verge of flying apart in a thousand different directions. "Thanks." Marissa held the deposit bag out to Sarah. "You're sure you don't mind dropping it off at the bank on your way home?"

"No problem." There was a rustle--Sarah getting her coat from the rack, Marissa guessed. "Tim's prepping the bar before he clocks out, and Jessa just came in, so she'll reset the condiments." She hesitated, then asked, "So, are we going with the price changes this week or next?"

Speaking of things flying apart. "It'll have to be next week. Gary hasn't signed off on them."

"You're sure he'll approve them?" 

"Of course he will." Marissa knew why Sarah sounded nervous. The whole staff was due a raise, and some of it had to come from a slight rise in menu prices. Most of it was simple stuff--a nickel here, fifty cents there--but both partners had to agree to each change. Gary kept coming up with excuses--okay, reasons--why he didn't have time to go over them all, even though he'd written out the check to pay for the new menus. He'd get to it eventually, he always did, but the paper could make things hard in the moment. Or moments. Any given moment, really. Prioritizing their lives was like an endless game of rock-paper-scissors, with the paper always winning. Paper trumped the bar, the bar trumped school. "I just need to corner him for an hour or so. You know how hard that can be."

Sarah's tone warmed. "I also know you're brilliant at getting him to focus. If you weren't his partner, this place wouldn't even exist. Maybe you'll get lucky with the menus. Seems like he's around more these days, waiting for Detective Brigatti to show up. Have a good afternoon!"

Sarah was right, Marissa thought as she put her headphones back on and checked email. Gary's relationship with Toni had changed things. He still ran around like a headless chicken, but he was happier about it, and seemed to look forward to the times she showed up out of the blue, even when she stopped by to chew his butt, like she had yesterday. So yes, he was more likely to be on the premises these days, but he wasn't necessarily more attentive to the business. Or to his business partner.

One thing at a time. Like the email from her advisor about next semester's senior practicum, the GRE planning meeting she needed to leave for in an hour or so, and the reading she had to finish for that evening's class. She moved out to the bar so she could hear the buzz of afternoon prep and be available for questions. She'd just set up her laptop when a chorus of, "Hey, Mr. Hobson!" accompanied clomping footsteps, and a hand landed on her shoulder. His fingers were tense, which meant she probably didn't have much time. Menus first; the whole staff was depending on those price changes. Then her own request.

"Gary, I'm so glad you're here. I need--"

"What are you doing this afternoon?" he asked as if she hadn't even opened her mouth.

It was a paper thing. She could tell by his voice, wound tight and urgent. Paper trumped everything. She swallowed back her list. "What time?"

"Half hour from now. Two-twelve, to be exact."

"I have a meeting with a professor at three, so I was planning to head to the L around two."

"That's plenty of time."

"To get to Northwestern?" 

He set the paper on the bar so it brushed her fingers. "Emmanuel Cabrerra, aka Manny, aka Wonder Man." Gary slid onto the stool next to hers. "Today he's going to be arrested on charges of disturbing the peace at Osco Drug over on Wabash. This is the fifth time in three weeks I've had to save his bacon, and I'm trying to figure out why. I thought maybe you could help."

Gary asking for help was unusual enough that she actually considered it for a second or two. "I can't, Gary, I told you about this meeting."

"Listen, he almost got shot yesterday, and now he's going to be arrested." He sighed, and his exhaustion brought her up short. He'd sounded that way a lot lately, and maybe this Manny character was the cause. "I don't know how to stop the superhero delusion he has going on. I thought you might be professionally interested."

"I'm not going to have a profession unless I get into a graduate program, and I'm not going to get into any program unless I score well on the GRE. Which is what this meeting's about. I have to make sure they have the adaptations I need to take the test, and I want to make a good impression on the professor who's arranging them."

"What if I take you to that appointment after we help Manny?" he asked. "I'll drive you there personally."

Given the way she worried this meeting was going to go, she wouldn't mind having someone with her, even if he was just waiting in the hall to offer silent moral support. "Mr. Cabrerra's not going to be hurt?"

"No, I don't think so. Why does he keep ending up in the paper? Why am I suddenly responsible for this guy?"

"If he's breaking the law, why is it up to you to stop him? Maybe getting arrested is the only way he'll stop doing these dangerous things."

"I don't think that's it. There's something going on with him, but he's not a bad guy. And the way Toni and the other cops talked about him yesterday, dismissing him like he's crazy or something, it bugged me."

The penny, as her grandmother had been fond of saying, finally dropped. "Because not long ago, that's the way Toni thought about you?"

"Maybe," he said after a moment that told her she'd hit the nail on the head. "The rest of them still do, no maybe about it. Her partner gives her all kinds of grief about dating me. Or whatever it is we're doing. I think he's joking around like Chuck would, but it doesn't make her job any easier."

"It hasn't scared her away, though." Not like the paper had scared Erica, and Renee and Meredith for that matter, right out of his life.

"Not yet. Anyway, look, you're the one who always says the paper comes for a reason. If Manny keeps showing up, there has to be a reason, right? A way to help him. I need you to help me figure out what it is."

The fact he assumed the paper wanted him to help someone like Manny was why the paper came to Gary. And because he was that kind of person, she was tempted to say yes. But he had to understand she had her own priorities. The menu changes should have been first, but for once school had to take precedence. "I cannot miss this meeting. The department's test proctor insists on speaking in person. Dr. Chatham has a reputation for being hard on everyone, especially women, and the way he sees it, I'm complicating things by needing those adaptations. If I don't make a good impression I'm worried he'll make the testing experience more stressful than it already is."

"That's not fair. You shouldn't have to jump through extra hoops just because you're blind."

"When's the last time the world was fair to anybody?"

"Huh." He was quiet for a moment, a moment in which Marissa felt like she had his full attention for the first time in weeks. "And the GRE, that's--uh, what's that again?"

"The Graduate Record Exam," she explained, the same way she'd explained it at least twice since she'd signed up for the test in July. "It's like the SAT, but for grad school. I need you to help me study and to take care of more of the responsibilities here at the bar. I have to pass it--not just pass it, do well on it--if I'm going to get into the Masters in Counseling program next fall."

"But that's next fall. Manny needs help right now, today." As if on cue, a plaintive meowing sounded from down near their feet. "Even Cat wants you to help."

As quickly as she'd had his full attention, it was gone. "The exam is three weeks from now. I have to make sure I know how this is going to work." She'd been dreading the meeting all week, mostly because of Chatham's cranky reputation. Rumor had it he'd scared more than one of his advisees out of the program. 

"Isn't that his job?"

"Proctoring is the kind of duty professors pass around from year to year. This is Dr. Chatham's year. Apparently none of them thinks it's a big deal until somebody like me shows up."

Gary knocked her elbow with his own. "You mean somebody who's smart enough to ace the test without studying?"

"You know what I mean. And I do need to study, I keep telling you. Look, this meeting is as much politics as anything else. I have to work with Dr. Chatham so we both know the testing situation will work for me. And it--it wouldn't hurt to have a friend around afterward, you know?" 

"I promise, I swear, I'll get you there. But I need your expertise to figure Manny out. I mean, it seems to me you're more qualified than anyone to help people who want to save the world."

"I'm not licensed yet. I don't even have a bachelor's degree. If you want to keep getting free counseling for you and your heroic friends, you need to make sure I get to this meeting."

"I will. We'll pick him up and you can talk to him on the way to campus, okay?"

There was no way she should say yes, no way this was going to go as smoothly as Gary seemed to believe it would. On the other hand, there was no way she could refuse to help, and Gary knew that as well as she did. "You sure you can make it up to campus that quick?"

"I swear it. Just talk to the guy, will you please?"

She was pretty sure she'd regret it, but she nodded.

*~*~*

"Watch out for the display here." As Gary guided her through the narrow aisles of the drug store, Marissa tried to filter out the piped-in music, beeping cash registers, and general chatter and hone in on any sounds of a man about to get into trouble. She'd just made out the voices of teenagers raised against perceived injustice--"Get away from us, you creep!" and "There's no age limit on cold medicine!"--when Gary pulled her to a stop.

An older voice said, "Even cough syrup can be dangerous. Believe me, nothing is what you think it is!"

"That would be Manny," Gary told her. "The one who sounds like a community service ad." 

"You kids are going to hurt yourselves. Come on, you don't want to accidentally overdose, do you?"

"Like you, Gary," Marissa said under the chorus of jeers from the teenagers. "He sounds like you." There was something in Manny's voice that caught at Marissa and wouldn't let go. Maybe it was the hint of desperation. Maybe it was that he really did sound like Gary. Someone rushed past her, calling for security.

"Hey, Manny." Gary let go of her arm. She put a hand on the nearest shelf to ground herself. "What's going on?"

"These kids plan to get high on over the counter medication."

"We're not doing anything wrong!" The girl's voice was young, and just a few feet away from Marissa.

"You kids ought to listen to him," Gary said. "He's trying to help."

"Screw this, let's get out of here," said a boy who sounded like he was on the raggedy edge of puberty, no more than fourteen or fifteen.

There was movement all around Marissa, along with incoherent grunts and shouting. Someone banged into her, knocking her into shelves. She slipped on the smooth floor and went down. Boxes and bottles came down with her. Just above her head, glass shattered and something sticky rained onto her head. Cough syrup; she recognized the fake grape smell as it ran down the side of her face.

"Gary?" He grunted from somewhere on the floor, sounded like a couple yards away.

A hand--it wasn't Gary's, so it must have been Manny's--cupped her elbow and helped her stand. "Hey, so are you Batgirl? Or are you one of the girl Robins?" 

"I told you, I'm not Batman," Gary muttered. "I don't have Batman's money."

"I did once," Manny said.

Another grunt, and then Gary was closer. "Marissa, you okay?"

She reached up and touched a tentative hand to her hair. It came away covered in cough syrup and tiny bits of glass. "I guess so."

"What are you people doing?" said a new voice. 

"Security guard," Gary whispered in her ear, then, louder, "We were just trying to stop some kids from shoplifting. I think."

"You think? Look at this mess. I should call the cops."

"No!" Marissa's voice was joined by Gary's and Manny's, all, she presumed, for different reasons. 

"We're sorry," Gary said, "and we'll pay for any damage, but this wasn't our fault. It was those kids."

"Kids who were about to steal your medicine!" Manny added.

"Who are you people?"

"Believe me," Marissa told him, "the less you know, the better off you'll be." 

"We're just concerned citizens," Gary insisted.

"He's a citizen, or at least he pretends to be," Manny said confidentially. "You know, like Bruce Wayne. I'm Wonder Man."

Marissa held her breath. Manny had just given the guard every reason to call the police. But instead he asked in an amused tone, "Marvel and DC? Isn't that a mixed marriage?"

"We're not married!" Gary yelped.

"Father and son?"

"Oh, God, no. Look are we done here?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Give me the address and phone for the Batcave, and we'll call it good."

Gary told him the number at McGinty's; when the guard asked Manny where to reach him, Manny said, "I'm with them."

"Come on, both of you," Gary said when he took Marissa's arm. "We'll go back to the bar and clean up."

"But I have--"

"A meeting, yeah, I know, but your hair and your face are kinda sticky right now."

Marissa had no desire to explain her state to the formidable Dr. Chatham. She touched her watch; it was two-twenty. If she hurried, and if Gary really would take her in the jeep, she might still be able to make it up to campus by three. It wouldn't leave much time for her to figure out Gary's latest stray. "Manny has to come with us if you want me to, you know..." She trailed off, not sure how close Manny was and how oblivious--or not--he would be to conversations about his mental health.

"Yup, got it. Manny, let's go."

They hustled out of the drug store, into damp, cool air tinged with the bite of decaying leaves. "I was just trying to help," Manny kept muttering as they walked back to McGinty's. "Those kids were going to get high. I heard them say so in the park. And I know, believe me, I know, that is not the way to go. They'll probably go somewhere else and get more of the stuff. Why didn't they listen?" He sounded close to tears.

"That's a very good question," Gary said, with a note of fervency that confirmed exactly why he wanted to help the guy. Marissa agreed too much to be upset about the mess her afternoon had become.

When they got to the bar, Gary settled Manny, who was still making distressed murmurs, in a booth with a burger, then walked Marissa up to the loft. "Towel, washcloth," he said, handing them to her. "It's all over your shirt, too. Not sure what you want to do about that."

Gary probably didn't realize it, but at that moment Marissa knew it was too late to make her meeting. It would take half an hour at least to wash her hair and comb out the glass, and she wasn't going to show up at school wearing any of the options available to her. And truth be told, she wanted to find out just why Manny Cabrerra thought he was a superhero. "Can you get me one of the staff shirts? And check on Manny while you're down there, he's not in a good place right now. He's upset, he thinks he failed those kids, and he's sure he really is a superhero." She couldn't hold it in any more. "My God, Gary, that could be you in twenty years."

"I'm not--" he started, then all the annoyance drained out of his voice. "Well, maybe in twenty years I will be. Get cleaned up and I'll take you to your meeting."

"No you won't."

"But I--"

"There's no way we'll make it on time, not unless you drive so recklessly that we all end up in an accident. I'll call and reschedule the meeting." Paper trumped school, and at times she resented it, but this wasn't about the paper so much as it was about a person. Still, she told Gary, "And you _will_ make it up to me."

* * *

"Hey, these fries are really good. Can I get some more?"

"Sure." Gary signaled Jessa to bring more food and sat back in the booth, watching Manny wolf down his second burger. Marissa had been upstairs cleaning up and calling her professor--and probably cussing him out in his own loft for making her miss her meeting--for over half an hour. He wished she'd hurry up. He needed help deciphering this stray superhero. "So where is it you live, Manny?"

"Where the streets have no name. The food's much better here in the Batcave."

That was actually progress. Last time Gary'd asked, Manny had shook his head and shoved a burger in his mouth. "You mean you don't know your address? Did you forget?" Maybe that was part of his delusion.

Manny shook his head. "Secret lair. You know how it goes."

"This is not the Batcave, you know that, right? I mean, I don't have a butler bringing me stuff when I--" He broke off when Jessa slid another plate of fries onto the table. 

"You look like you could use this," she said, and put a mug of coffee in front of Gary. Black, plain, and hot. He nodded his thanks while he gulped it down, letting it scorch the sticky sweet smell of cough syrup out of his nasal passages.

Manny waited until she went off to another table to ask, "What were you saying about not having a butler?"

"Well, I sure don't have one who brings me high tech gadgets and a fancy car. I'm not Batman, Manny, and you're not--" No, that was the wrong thing to say. Where the hell was Marissa? "You might be doing more than your powers can handle right now, you know? I appreciate that you want to help people, and I have to say I'm impressed with how often you seem to find them."

"Just like you find me," Manny said with a beaming smile. "That's why we should team up. We can both help more people if we work together."

That was all he needed. "I don't know if you're prepared for some of the stuff I do." 

"I get it, you already have a sidekick." Manny gave a sage nod and shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. He said something that sounded like, "Eerie ums ow," and pointed across the room, where Marissa was finally making her way toward them, a sheaf of Braille printouts in hand. She stopped at the bar and asked AJ something. Manny swallowed and added, "I'm thinking more of a partnership. Like when they do crossover stories."

Gary didn't have a response to that, at least not one Manny would want to hear. "Hey, Marissa, we're over here," he called instead, and scooted down the booth seat to make room for her. He couldn't quite read her expression as she folded her cane and fussed with the printouts, tapping them into a neat stack. He thought maybe it was because she was still pissed at him about the meeting, until she cleared her throat.

"So, Manny." She ran her fingers over the top printout. "You've been in prison?"

"He what?" Gary turned to Manny, who'd lost his happy grin, but was nodding.

"Just like Wonder Man. It's okay," he told Gary, "I've been redeemed. It's part of my origin story."

"I made some calls, read some records. Apparently you were involved in fraud at a pharmaceutical company," Marissa said. "Did you really lie to participants in a drug trial? People were hurt by this, Manny. It doesn't sound like you at all." She folded her hands on the printouts and waited. 

Gary followed her cue and swallowed back all the questions that jumped to mind. Manny stared down at the fry he was dragging though a pool of ketchup. He made a "W" in the pool, then looked up at Gary. The usual sparkle was missing from his dark eyes. "I was a chemist, a good one," he said. "More like Baron Zemo than Wonder Man, really. I worked at LorTech Pharm for almost twenty years. I thought I was doing something important, that we were going to change the world for the better. Cure cancer, maybe, but there's not as much money in that as you might think."

Gary had heard of LorTech; they funded half the public arts projects in the city. 

"Did you go into medical research to make money?" Marissa asked pointedly. 

"No, but you have to research what the bosses tell you to research," Manny said. "I went along with it because it was all supposed to help people in lots of different ways. Then they started asking us to do stuff I wasn't sure about. Not all the time, just here and there." He picked out another fry and scribbled it in the ketchup like a crayon, obliterating the "W."

"The first time it was a--a male enhancement sort of thing. Not life or death. So when the placebo outperformed the test drug, they told me to switch the results. At first I didn't want to, but my wife told me it was okay. It was just fooling rich guys into thinking they could--you know, last a little longer. Doubled my salary for the year. Bailey said I had to keep doing what they told me, that putting our kids through college was the least LorTech could do after all the hours I'd put in for them. But then they asked me to falsify results for other drugs. Pain killers, cold remedies, and then--I don't know, I got lost in it. I stopped thinking about what I was doing. I guess I didn't want to see. I was making money, supporting my family. I got so I could fudge data in my sleep. But then one day my son, he was a teenager, he got a staph infection from some contaminated wrestling equipment. It was almost a week before we were sure we weren't going to lose him. Sitting in that hospital room with him, I couldn't--I couldn't face--"

"You wondered if he would get better, or if the doctors were just pumping him full of placebos?" Marissa asked.

Manny nodded, darted a look at her, and cleared his throat. "Yeah. So the next time my bosses told me to fake data, I said no. They fired me, and when I reported what was going on, they managed to dump all the blame on me, hide all the traces of their involvement. The investigators wanted to get to the men at the top who were doing it, but they couldn't find anything. I went to jail for a couple years. My wife and son blamed me, too. When I got out, Bailey took me back in, but I know she's still mad. She has trouble believing without proof, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Gary said. Marissa slid her hand so it was next to his. "It's hard to find people who'll do that."

"I tried to get another job, but I'm not good at much except chemistry. No one wants me to do that anymore, not with my record. One day I was gassing up Bailey's SUV and the lady at the next pump had her credit card declined. She had four kids stuffed in her Cavalier. I paid for her gas, I mean, that's not a big deal, right? The next day there was a flyer in crayon about a lost dog in the park and I walked around the neighborhood until I found it. You should have seen that kid's face when he opened the door and saw his best buddy. Then things just started happening around me. Or maybe they always were and I just didn't have my eyes open. There's this whole world of people in trouble. Helping them seems like the only way I can make up for everything I've done. But my wife and son sure don't understand. She kicked me out after I gave a thousand dollars to a homeless family."

"When's the last time you talked to your family?" Marissa asked.

He shook his head, not even bothering to give an answer Marissa could hear. "Maybe we should call them for you," Gary said. "They might surprise you."

"Talk to them, Manny," Marissa said. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it out to him. "They'll forgive you, even if you can't forgive yourself. They're your family, they have to."

Manny sighed and looked to Gary. He nodded, even though he wasn't one hundred percent sure how the family would react. At least Manny hadn't mentioned actually being a superhero in the past half hour or so. Manny dialed, stuttered out, "Hey, uh, Bailey? It's me. I--I want to come home."

Gary and Marissa moved to the bar to give him some privacy. "How'd you find out about jail?" he asked.

"Called Toni. She's trying to decide if he's a credible witness in her case against Scott Hennepin and James O'Reardon, so she'd looked into his background. What Manny told us lines up with the records she sent me."

"She sent you police files?" 

"Public records. Nothing that I couldn't have found with a little investigative work on my own. You wanted to understand the guy."

"Yeah, but I never thought of anything so underhanded. Thanks, I guess."

She lifted an eyebrow. "You guess?"

"I know. Thank you. Do you think he's telling the truth about LorTech throwing him to the wolves?" Gary asked. "I mean, he seems pretty coherent today, but is that how drug companies work?"

"I don't really know. I suppose that's something I'd learn in graduate school, if I ever get in."

So she was still pissed, at least a little. "Look at it this way," he tried. "What you've done for Manny, getting him to unload like that--you're already doing the job you want the right to train for. It's a lot of money to spend to get a master's degree when you're already better at it than a lot of people."

"Nobody's going to hire me without that degree."

The thought of someone else hiring her, of Marissa not being at the bar all the time, ready and willing to help, gave Gary a lurch of worry. But he wasn't going to be the one to say so and hold her back. "I'll hire you," he teased instead. "Heck, you can hang out a shingle right here. We'll clear off the couch in the office."

"And I'll spend all my time counseling you," she finished drily. "Not that you aren't a rich field for psychological study, but Gary, I think there's more I can do."

"I didn't say there wasn't. I know here is. I meant I hope there'll always be a place on that couch for me."

"There won't be a couch or a shingle if I don't pass that test. You're going to help me study tonight, right?"

"Sure. As soon as I take care of a fire in the South Loop and a car crash on the Stevenson at rush hour. But I'll come back, I promise. Meanwhile, maybe you could talk to Manny a little more, see if you can help him until his family gets here."

"Sure," she said tightly.

"You're mad."

"I'm not mad. I made the choice to miss the meeting. It's as much my fault as yours or the paper's." She let out a long breath. "I'm not exactly happy, either. I hated making that call to Dr. Chatham. I already have to work twice as hard as anyone else to prove to my professors that the accommodations they're making for me are justified."

"I really did think we could make it." He looked across the bar, where Manny was building another receiver out of condiments. "Manny's just--he's hard to shake, you know?"

"Yeah," she said with a smile that was more worried than genuine. "I'm getting that."

* * *

"The first four presentations are Friday afternoon, so I hope you're all ready. And remember, I'm expecting a draft of your papers on the case files Monday." Dr. Ogoyu's voice, precise and sure, pinged off the walls of the seminar room. "It's been on the syllabus since the beginning of the semester, Mr. Envers, so no groaning. That's all for today." 

Marissa shut off her tape recorder while everyone else slid notebooks and laptops into backpacks. At her side, Reilly stood up, but Dr. Ogoyu added, "Ms. Clark, I'd like to speak to you." Marissa gave a quick tug of Reilly's harness. He sat back down and they waited for the rest of the class to leave. 

"You want me to wait in the hall?" Shannon, who sat next to her and usually rode the L back to the city with her, gave Marissa's shoulder a nudge. When Marissa nodded, she whispered, "Good luck," patted Reilly's head, and left. 

Dr. Ogoyu sat in the chair Shannon had vacated, bringing a faint whiff of jasmine soap with her. "I spoke to Dr. Chatham this morning." Her voice still bounced off the walls, though she lowered it. "Or rather, he spoke to me. He tracked me down because he knows I'm your advisor. He said you cancelled on a meeting about the accommodations you need for the GRE."

"That's true. I couldn't make it here on time." Marissa stopped there; she drew her hands into her lap and sat up straight. Squeezed her fingers together to hold in an explanation that would only sound like an excuse. Everything about school put her on the defensive these days; she didn't want to get drawn into telling lies if she could help it. 

After a quiet moment in which Marissa wondered what her advisor was deciding not to say, Dr. Ogoyu asked, "You rescheduled?"

"Yes, of course. Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty."

"I'd like to be there."

"You don't have to do that."

Dr. Ogoyu put a hand on her arm; her voice warmed. "I know you can stand up for yourself, but as I'm sure you've ascertained, Dr. Chatham is not the most genial member of our faculty. To be perfectly honest, he's overdue for a sabbatical, but you didn't hear that from me. At any rate, he needs to understand how important this is, and my presence may help impress that upon him. " 

Marissa wasn't sure if she should acknowledge inter-faculty gossip. For all she knew, that little tidbit was another test. "If it's not an inconvenience, I'd love to have you there."

"I'm your advisor. Let me do that job. You belong in the master's program if that's what you want."

Marissa thanked her and left, but the implied question in Dr. Ogoyu's last words followed her. She barely heard Shannon's chatter about the presentations as she considered the answer. Was this what she wanted? Her first impulse was to say that of course it was, but then why hadn't she said so, and why had she let Gary talk her into going to the drugstore the day before? Was it only because Manny had been right there, needing her help in the moment, or was there more to her reluctance? Was she afraid of failing at the GRE, and at grad school, or was she afraid of what would happen if she succeeded? 

This was the curse of a psychology degree, she supposed. She was always questioning motives, especially her own. Gary might complain about her digging into his psyche now and then, but he had no idea what it was like to live with that analysis going on constantly in her own head, directed right at her own weaknesses.

Of course this was what she wanted, she told herself when she said good-bye to Shannon and got off at the Merchandise Mart stop. An undergraduate degree in psychology was only a stepping stone to a graduate program. She'd need at least a master's to do anything in the field and past that, she wasn't sure. Probably not private practice, and definitely not a large hospital, but there were other jobs that would let her use her training to help people. It would take a lot of work and commitment, but she hadn't come this far to throw it all away and resign herself to managing a bar for the rest of her life. 

Not that she hated running McGinty's. The interactions with the staff and the customers, the way they demanded a completely different kind of focus and attention than school, had taught her just how much she could handle. Plus, even if Gary was MIA, as usual, she could count on one of the staff, many of whom were students themselves, to help her cram for the GRE.

A few hours later, she was at the end of the bar, taking advantage of that perk. Gary wasn't around, but AJ was reading her analogy questions from the test practice book in between mixing drinks. He'd just left her with, "'Chronological' is to 'time' as blank is to 'place,'" when sure, steady footsteps--the shoes sounded more substantial and probably more comfortable than the heels she'd been wearing last time--told her Toni had arrived.

"Hey, Marissa."

"Hi. Gary's not here. He said something at lunch about crowd control at a playground and helping an old man with a squirrel invasion. Sorry."

"That's okay." Toni cleared her throat, a moment of hesitation that was completely unlike her. "You busy?"

"Yes, but I'm ready for a break." She closed her laptop to prove the point. "AJ? Are there any tables free?"

"Number three, over by the window. You drinking tonight, Detective?" 

"It's Toni," she said, "and sure, as long as I'm not drinking alone."

"Marissa, you done studying?" AJ asked. 

"Yeah, except--ordinal," Marissa told him. "Chronological is to--"

"Got it. Chardonnay or Burgundy?"

"Chardonnay," they said together. Toni let out a weak chuckle; Marissa shrugged. She'd figured out weeks ago that Toni only drank reds when she was eating a meal. If she stopped by to have a drink before a date with Gary, she always took white. 

"You guys going out tonight?" Marissa asked as they sat down. 

"I'm not sure. He said something about calling, but..." Toni trailed off.

"It's hard to trust he'll follow up?" Marissa guessed. She took a drink of the wine, only barely resisting the urge to gulp it down like water. It was a sure sign the past few weeks had been even more stressful than she'd let herself acknowledge.

Toni laughed again, with that same note of--it wasn't quite defeat. "Spoken like someone who knows." Tired. She sounded tired.

"Oh, believe me, I do."

"Sorry about that." There was a faint tapping, a fingernail on glass. "I realized you were trying to ask him for help the other night, but I was a little jumpy from the case."

"And pissed at Gary? I don't blame you. This has been going on for a long time, not just since you two started dating." She took another sip of the wine and let its warmth spread down her throat before she went on. "Gary's a lot of good things, but he's also as distractible as a magpie. And as much as he likes helping people, his priority is usually the new person who needs it most."

"Like Manny Cabrerra?" Even though she asked the question like the cop that she was, jumping on the opportunity to press for new information, Toni's voice didn't have the accusatory edge it used to, back before she'd known about the paper. "I heard you guys had a run-in at the drugstore yesterday."

"It wasn't a big deal." Not worthy of a police investigation, anyway. She was still turning over what it had taught her about Manny, and by extension Gary, in the back of her brain. "Manny was trying to help the kids, Gary was trying to help Manny, and I was trying to help Gary help Manny. He's a good guy, you know. Manny, I mean. He's trying to make up for things he's done."

"Yeah, he did time for some white collar--" Toni broke off and yawned. 

"Are you okay? You sound exhausted."

"Job hazard. That drug bust Hobson stumbled into the other day has morphed into something much more complicated. I've been at work for all but a few hours since then."

Hobson. When she talked about Gary in relation to work, it was almost always Hobson. Marissa had had enough wine to ask about that, but Toni went on. "So Cabrerra imagines he's a superhero and pushes himself into situations that are over his head trying to save the day. Not unlike someone else we know." She downed more wine with an audible gulp. "He's not going to make a very reliable witness, especially now that his family's checked him into a psych hospital."

"They did?" Marissa wasn't sure what unsettled her more, the way Toni said "psych hospital" as if it were a life sentence, or the immediate realization that this was on her.

"Yeah, someplace called Arden Treatment Center. What's wrong?"

"I'm the one who told him to call his wife yesterday." It felt like an admission, a confession. "I hope---I mean, this has to be the right thing for him, doesn't it?"

Toni took a few seconds before she answered. Her wine glass clinked on the table while Marissa traced the rim of her own with a finger, wondering. Manny had issues, and this way he'd be out of Gary's hair for a while, but it all seemed very abrupt.

"I think it is," Toni finally said. "It'll make it hard to get a reliable statement from him about what went down in the coffee shop, but that was never going to be easy. The guy seems to think he's a comic book character half the time. I got almost as much crap from my partner for wanting to get a statement out of him as I do for dating Gary."

"You ladies need a refill?" AJ asked. 

"Why don't you just leave us the bottle?" Marissa said, surprised to find her glass was empty. She topped it off, then tilted the neck of the bottle in Toni's direction. "And why don't you tell me why you're really here?"

Toni was quiet for a moment while more wine gurgled into her glass. She took a drink and sighed, then finally said, "I may have messed things up, coming in here the other day after--well, I'm sure Hobson told you what happened."

There was no point in denying it. "He did. Sounds like he messed things up for you, too. I know he didn't mean to, but you weren't wrong to call him out on it." 

"Huh."

"'Huh'?"

"Usually you're the one defending him." 

"Maybe he doesn't need protection from you. You don't honestly believe he's angry with you, do you? Because trust me, he's not. The guy is smitten." The wine was going down even more smoothly now. If she kept going, she was going to tell Toni everything about Gary, the paper, and--well, everything--but then, she realized with a wave of relief, Toni was now the one person in the world with whom she could be so honest. "I know Gary. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have many secrets from you these days, except one." Marissa leaned in close. "He's terrified of losing you. Now that you know about the paper, he's relieved, but also worried how things will play out long term. People react to it in odd ways."

"It's an odd thing. It means his responsibilities keep getting in the way of mine, and it makes it hard to explain our relationship to other people. Such as it is," Toni added under her breath.

Marissa grinned. "I know about that, too. But people come and go in life for other reasons. Gary just...he takes it on himself. It goes back at least as far as Marcia dumping his suitcase out a window on their anniversary. And he--" Marissa sat up straight as her slight haze snagged on a new thought. After Marcia, he'd lost Emma, Renee, and Erica in quick succession; even his best friend had moved across the country. Now some part of him, no matter how he repressed it, was worried the paper would lead him to do something that would drive Toni away, too. And she was talking about starting graduate school, which wouldn't take her away, but since he was skittish about being left behind...

No wonder he hadn't been responding to her requests for support when it came to school. Consciously or not--and she was certain it was "not"--he was afraid she was leaving him, too. She'd have to make sure he knew she wasn't going anywhere.

"What?" Toni asked.

"I was just thinking how glad I am that he finally told you about the paper. I'm happy you guys are together. I think you're good for each other."

"You do?"

"Sure I do. You confuse and frustrate him sometimes, but you also make him laugh." And then, because Toni seemed to need convincing, she added, "Sometimes I ask him to describe things, not because I need to know how they look, but because I want to get a read on what he thinks or feels about that thing. But when I ask him to tell me about you, he never gets beyond, 'Dark hair, dark eyes.'"

The noise Toni made was part snort, part laugh. "That's all he's got?"

"He never gets beyond that because he starts telling me stories about you. What you've done, what a great cop you are--who you are as a person. You're so much more than what you look like to him, and you're a huge, important part of his life." She let that sink in, then added, "That, or he just gets too embarrassed by how overwhelmingly beautiful he thinks you are."

"Thanks," Toni said after a moment's silence. "I kind of needed to know that after the grief my partner's been giving me the past few months. Which you probably understand better than anyone. It must be hard sometimes, being his support system."

Marissa nodded. "It would help if it--" she bit back the rest, that she wished it would go both ways more often. Said out loud, to someone who knew the full extent of the good things Gary did, it sounded selfish. 

But Toni seemed to understand. "If he realized what kind of crap he unloads on people, doing what he does?"

"Something like that, yeah. I'm used to telling my parents or my sisters nearly everything. But this isn't something I can just blurt out to them, and I wouldn't do it without Gary's okay."

"It's not meant to be told. I get it, I really do. It's taken me a long time to get used to it even though he did tell me. It kind of--"

"What?"

Toni gave a quick, wry laugh. "Speaking of illogical things to be bothered by, it pisses me off that I didn't figure it out myself. All the evidence was there. It's not like he hides the paper very well."

"What Gary does, what lands on his doorstep every morning, that's not the obvious answer to any questions you might have had about him. Or anyone." While that was sinking in, another realization hit. "That's a big part of why I haven't told my family. The only one who might have accepted it without question was my grandmother, and she died before it came to Gary. Before I knew much about him at all."

"My Nonna Brigatti would be all over this. She's a very devout Catholic, believes in miracles and saints. Not that Gary's a saint."

Marissa nearly choked on her wine. "Nope."

"So some of my family I might be able to tell, if it ever comes up. My brothers, on the other hand? No way."

"You have brothers?"

"Three. Three tall, good-looking, obnoxious pains in the ass. Who I should probably thank for teaching me how to handle the boys' club in law enforcement and all the shit I get for dating a nutcase—oh." Toni broke off. "Sorry. I'm talking like I'm in the bullpen. Nonna would wash my mouth out with soap."

Marissa waved it off. "I own a bar. So even though I don't have brothers--except maybe Gary--I've heard pretty much everything." A sound came out of her mouth that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "Funny. I own a bar, and I can't remember the last time I let myself get buzzed."

"I'm guessing you deserve a night off. You're studying psychology, right?" 

Marissa nodded. "I'll finish my bachelor's this year, and I'm applying to a graduate program at Northwestern. I'm not a hundred percent sure what I want to do after that." She swung her wine glass in a little arc, sloshing a couple drops onto her hand. "The future's wide open."

"You ought to consider a job in the department. We have consultants who help us figure out what the bad guys are thinking, support cops who are going through tough times, help us work with victims and witnesses, that kind of thing. Problem is, we don't have enough of them."

Even though her thoughts were comfortably hazy, that idea lodged itself in her brain. "Sounds intriguing. Plus, I'd love to hear Gary's reaction to the two of us working together." 

Toni laughed, a genuine, warm chuckle. "I promise to describe the exact look on his face if that happens. Speaking of which, guess who the cat just dragged in."

Marissa heard his booted footsteps clomp from the front foyer past their table and keep going with a perfunctory grunt. "Ladies."

Toni's glass clonked on the table. "Wait, Hob--"

Marissa held up a hand. "Three, two--"

Gary's footsteps stopped. Clomped back, bringing a cloud of reek that threatened to sour the wine. "Uh, ladies. What are you doing? Toni, did we have a date?"

"Not specifically." Toni took another noisy sip of her wine. "Marissa and I are just talking."

"About what? About me?"

Toni snorted. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Marissa?"

If Toni wanted to leave Gary twisting in the wind, Marissa wasn't about to spoil the game. "We were discussing girl stuff. And business. Our business."

"I came by to tell you that we're going after an indictment on O'Reardon, thanks to the information Hennepin was able to give us," Toni said. "I thought you'd want to know."

"Well, sure I want to know. But right now I want a shower more."

"I'm pretty sure our patrons want the same thing for you." Marissa waved a hand in front of her nose. Whatever he'd rolled in, it smelled worse than Cat's litter box. "Where in the world have you been?" 

"It was a whole thing with an attic and a squirrel family. You hear anything from Manny today? I tried to call him earlier, when you were in class. His wife said he'd checked into some kind of hospital where they could take care of him."

"Arden Treatment Center," Toni supplied. "I have to run him down and talk to him about his testimony, but his wife said he needed a couple days to get back to himself first. I thought it made sense."

"He's in a psych ward?" Gary's hand landed on the table next to Marissa's, and she resisted the urge to push it away. He really did reek. "Manny?"

"The guy thinks he's a superhero," Toni said. Her toe nudged Marissa's. "Where else should he be?"

"I don't know. It sounds wrong. How much have you two had to drink?"

"Probably not enough," Toni said.

Of course it sounded wrong to the guy who avoided even the mention of professional mental health care. But before Marissa could say so, AJ came over and rescued Gary. "Hey Mr. H. You want a beer?"

"Yeah, but not right now. I gotta take a shower. Can you give Marissa a ride home after close? I don't think I'm going to make it that long."

"Sure thing," AJ said, and walked away, probably holding his nose.

"What did I tell you?" Marissa asked Toni. "The brother I never had. Gary, I can find my own way home."

"I'm just making sure you're not sloshing around on the L."

"I'm hardly drunk. I just had a couple glasses of wine. And trust me, I wasn't planning on you tonight. I'm not riding in the same car as you until you've had at least three showers."

"Okay, fine, sue me for looking out for you. Not my fault the squirrels pooped all over the damn attic. Guess I'd better get out of here before you two put me in a straitjacket." He stomped off. 

"He probably thinks we're getting ready to check him into the same place as Manny," Marissa told Toni. "I should go after him."

"No, you shouldn't. Neither of us should. He ought to be able to work out the differences between himself and a not-all-there ex-con." There was another long pause, then a tired sigh. "But if one of us is going to, it should be me. He and I have a few other things to work out."

Marissa let a grin slip, though she didn't make a comment about how they'd probably work it out. Toni got too much of that at work as it was. "First dibs are all yours."

"Thanks. I think. Mind if I take the rest with me? I might need it." The wine bottle clanked as Toni picked it up. "Maybe we should do this again sometime."

"If it bothers Gary this much--" Hell, if it gave her someone to _talk_ to. "--we definitely should."

* * *

When Toni walked into the loft, the shower was running. Steam billowed from the half-open door to the bathroom, contrasted by the cool fall air creeping in from the fully open windows. The cat meowed from the bed, and Toni put a hand on the back of the sofa for balance. It wasn't just the wine messing her up, it was exhaustion. She finished off her glass and set it and the bottle on the table, then met the cat's implacable gaze. A cat named Cat. So creative.

"What am I doing here?" she asked it. It stared at her while she leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. Gary's back was to her, nearly hidden in the mottled glass of the shoulder-height shower door and the clouds of steam engulfing the room. His head was tipped back toward the enormous rainfall showerhead. 

"This place must have one hell of a water heater," she said loudly. He jumped, bumped his elbow on the wall, and turned to face her. 

"What are--well, yeah, it's the restaurant's so--what are you doing here?" He scrubbed at his face with his hands and blinked owlishly at her as if she was a vision conjured out of the steam. 

What kind of vision?, she wondered, and wasn't sure she wanted the answer. "I came here to talk to you."

"Funny, it seems like you were talking about me."

"Marissa and I have more to discuss than you." She shot him a wicked grin. "Not that you weren't a topic."

"Oh, God."

She toed at the pile of his clothes. Even through the steam, the stink rose up and slapped her in the face. "You know we're allowed to be friends, right? And you're not allowed to be paranoid about it."

"Kinda hard, when the two of you are...well, the two of you." Gary folded his arms on top of the shower door. He ducked his chin, and she wasn't sure if he was trying to power out the gunk on the back of his head, or if he just couldn't hold it up anymore. "She's pissed at me, isn't she?"

"More like frustrated, and not without cause." If he answered, it was lost in the hands he scrubbed across his face. She didn't elaborate. Marissa was more than capable of doing that herself, and Toni suspected Gary knew exactly why, whether he'd admit it or not. "Do I want to know what happened to you?"

"It was a whole thing involving squirrels and an attic and this old guy who thought he could...no, you probably don't. So what are you doing here, really?"

"I'm asking myself the same question." The fuzziness was sharpening itself into a pounding headache. "I could be home soaking away the stress of the past two days in a nice hot bath."

He lifted his head a few inches. His voice took on a hopeful lilt. "You could join me."

"With what you're washing off?" She picked up his shirt, a windowpane plaid a few degrees subtler than most of his L.L. Bean knockoffs, and held it at arm's length. "No thanks. Is that stain blood?"

"Yeah?"

"Yours?"

He held up his arm. It was hatched with scrapes and scratches, some still oozing droplets of blood. "Probably. The squirrels never got hurt. Mr. Rivers had a family of them in his attic. He was trying to take care of them with a shotgun, but he didn't realize the pellets could ricochet right back to him in the crawl space. When I pulled him out, the squirrels followed, and he went after them into a bathroom, and the whole thing went ka-blooey from there."

That shocked her out of her haze. Guns could ricochet in bathrooms, too. "Ka-blooey?"

"I kinda broke his shower door. It was a small bathroom!" he added when she opened her mouth. "Eventually we got them trapped in a couple of buckets and tossed them out the door." 

"So you went after a nest of squirrels with a guy who was ready to use a shotgun in the house? Maybe Winslow's right about you."

"Mr. Rivers was going to shoot himself in the face. I didn't think it would be such a big mess. Most of the squirrels were just babies."

She nodded at his arm. "You got all that from baby squirrels?"

"Don’t believe the cartoons. Those things are not cute." He turned back into the stream of the shower and dumped what looked like half a bottle of shampoo on his head.

"So you might have rabies? That's a real turn-on." This kind of thing was exactly why she kept pulling herself back from him. Their responsibilities would always be there between them, unavoidable as the stink of his clothes. At least she could get rid of those, but where? If she put them in the hamper, or the garbage where they belonged, everything else in the loft would end up smelling just as bad. If she put them on the landing, the office and the kitchen would reek by morning. So she tossed them out the open window onto the fire escape, then slammed the window shut, which was a mistake that made her head throb.

She pulled a pair of boxers and a t-shirt from the drawer of his wardrobe; a drawer where he apparently piled clothes in without folding them. "Put these on," she said, tossing them into the bathroom, where he was toweling off. "Then come out here and I'll take care of those scratches." 

He waggled his eyebrows and hips. "You’re here to manhandle my broken body?" 

"You wish." She poured the rest of the wine, what little there was, into her glass. "You want any of this?”

"I’m more of a beer drinker." Tugging the t-shirt over his head, he emerged from the bathroom, hair sticking out in every direction. "You're wearing the same thing you left in two nights ago."

"It's been a long couple days at work. But like I said, I think we'll be able to make something stick with O'Reardon, as long as we can keep Hennepin on a leash. It's tricky. State's Attorney wants to offer him immunity if he turns on O'Reardon, but I promised his wife I'd lock him up. I know O'Reardon is the bigger fish, but—" She looked into her nearly empty wineglass, but there was just a swirl of liquid left, too clear to hold any answers.

"But you made a promise to someone who's vulnerable and desperate." He cupped her jaw, lifted her head so their eyes met. "I know it's hard, but it's what makes you a good cop." His smile turned his eyes to droopy slits. "And a fairly decent human."

"You're not so bad yourself, Mr. Savior of Squirrels." She gave him a drowsy kiss, but his wrist against her cheek was warm and sticky, and she pushed away "You're still bleeding. Sit down and I'll take care of it."

He dropped onto the bed, eyes half-closed, and Toni retrieved a wet washcloth, bandages, and first aid cream from the bathroom. She sat down next to him, then realized her first impulse was to rest her head on his shoulder, and stood right back up. Better this way. She was looking down at him instead of vice-versa. 

She dabbed at the scratches on his right arm for a minute. "Look, I'm sorry about the other day, if I was—" She shrugged. "--you know. I was coming down off the bust and I might have taken it a little too far."

"Or not far enough." He met her gaze with a grin that was too sleepy to be half as wicked as he thought it was. "I'm glad I'm the one you come to when you need to work off a little steam."

When he didn't say anything more, just sat there grinning at her like the dope he was, she dabbed a little harder with the washcloth. "And?"

"And?"

She dropped his arm. "Aren't you going to apologize to me for blowing my cover with Hennepin?"

"I already did." He frowned. "Didn't I? Look, Toni, like I said the other day, I'm trying to stay out of your cases, but it's not always easy. Do you want me to call you up every time I go somewhere to make sure you're not already there doing undercover work?" He held up his other arm, but she didn't touch it. "Half the time when I call you don't answer your phone."

"Because I am _undercover_ , you idiot."

"And the truth is, if I hadn't been there in the coffee shop Manny would have died, you know that, right? He was my job."

She started cleaning off his arm, not nearly as gently as she'd done the first one. "Your job. Right. You know most of the guys I work with think you're going to end up in the same place as him? And that I'll be right there with you if we keep this up?"

"Toni." He turned his arm over and caught her hand in his. "Listen to me. I'm sorry—really sorry—that you're taking crap about me. No ifs, no buts. Not sure I know how to fix it, but you shouldn't have to put up with that. I'll back off, I swear."

She met his eyes and swayed, or maybe the room did. More than wine, more than exhaustion--this was falling, and she was going down hard. Or maybe she already had, and was only now realizing how far. As much as she craved kisses and sex and, God help her, even their fights, it was moments like this, their hands curled together, their defenses totally down, that told her what they had was different than any of her previous relationships. This guy and his impossible newspaper and magical cat, they kept her grounded and sure, and while that thought was enough to probably get her a free pass into the psych hospital alongside Cabrerra, she didn't just know it was true. She believed it. 

"Six impossible things before breakfast," she whispered, echoing Nonna Sylvia's voice in her head. Nonna had quoted it when Mom would tell her to stop filling the kids' heads with her wild saint stories. 

"How's that?"

"Never mind." She was too tired to explain it all, but the still-worried crease of Gary's forehead reminded her of what Marissa had said about him being afraid of people leaving. "I can handle the jerks at work. Sometimes I wish this was easier, but that doesn't mean I'm done with you, not by a long shot." She swayed again, or the room did, and he tugged at her hand.

"You're not driving home tonight."

To make the room stop moving, she leaned down and kissed him. "Nope." She put bandages on the worst scratches and tossed the wrappers in the bathroom trash, then turned to find he'd flopped back onto the bed and was snoring.

Just her luck. But she didn't mind nearly as much as she probably should have. She changed into one of his ridiculous lumberjack shirts, rolling the sleeves up at least a foot and curled up next to him, pulling the spare blanket over them both. Hobson turned onto his side, hooking a leg around hers. "Stay."

Toni took his hand and pulled his arm around her waist. "I'm planning on it."

* * *

Gary woke up before the alarm went off. Just a few minutes early, but it felt like an expanse of time with Toni curled into him, her face hidden by her hair. He'd been half out of it the night before, but now he had time to wonder how the hell he'd gotten so lucky.

After Marcia, he'd sworn to do it right the next time. He'd wait for the right person, make sure it was going somewhere before he did anything ridiculous like expect more than a date or two. Or tell someone new about the paper. After Erica, he'd had a better idea of who the right person might be: someone open to the paper, someone who'd be willing to let him do the right thing and not give him grief for it. 

So of course he'd gone and fallen for the most aggravating, infuriating, bossy woman he knew, not to mention the one with the job most likely to clash with his. He suspected Marissa could tell him why. Hell, she probably had a list of reasons. He just wasn't sure he wanted to know what they were.

Mismatched as he and Toni were, though, in this light, in this handful of breaths before morning shot them both off in opposite directions, he was sure they could make it work. He didn't have the first idea how, but maybe figuring it out could be half the fun. As for the other half, he pulled her in closer, wishing time—past, present, and especially the future--would take a flying leap and leave him alone for once. He could have stayed there for hours. Longer, if she'd wake up. But he didn't have the heart or the guts to do that to her, not when she'd worked for thirty-six hours straight, on a case he'd complicated for her.

Then the damn radio came on. "Good morning, Chicago! It's six-thirty, and we're looking at clear skies for the first time in over a week--"

Gary reached across Toni and slapped off the radio alarm. She stirred, but didn't open her eyes when he tucked her hair back over her ear. He took a few more sleepy, wishful seconds to watch her eyes dart back and forth under her lids, and then it came: the plop of the paper hitting the landing; Cat's meow in his ear. 

"What are you doing up here? I don't remember inviting you." He shooed Cat away from Toni; it padded to the end of the bed and pawed at his feet. "Okay, okay, I'm—"

An annoying trill sounded from Toni's clothes, which were draped over the armchair. "Well, now I'm really up." He swung his feet to the floor and dug through her pockets until he found the offending phone, then handed it to her as she sat up. 

She took it and answered without opening her eyes. "Brigatti. Yeah. What?"

Gary got the paper from the landing, but even though Cat perched on the pinball machine and watched him like some possessed statue, he started a pot of coffee instead of looking beyond the front page headlines, which were all about politics. Those weren't his problem, and as for the rest of it, neither he nor Toni had gotten enough sleep to save the world uncaffeinated. 

"…and I want to talk to Alice as soon as I can," Toni was saying as she groped for her clothes. "She's just barely starting to trust me, because Hennepin hasn't come after her… Well, no, I don't know how yet, but there has to be something we can do. If we can't get him for dealing can we at least do a restraining order? Nothing he's done to her should fall under the immunity deal, you hear me?" She went into the bathroom and changed without closing the door or pausing her conversation. "And we need to get her—I don't know. A lawyer or a counselor—someone from Victims' Services should talk to her. Yeah, I know they're swamped, but I promised this woman--okay, okay, I'll see what strings I can pull. Thanks. I'll be in before the State's Attorney shows up."

She closed the phone and stepped out of the bathroom; Gary held out a cup of coffee, but she shook her head. "I have to be at the station within the hour, but first I need to go home and get some clean clothes. I can't show up in the same thing I wore yesterday. Winslow makes wardrobe charts."

"You can't even have a cup of coffee?" He waved it under her nose. "I thought you said you could handle him."

"I can, and one of the ways I do that is by not giving him ammunition, so—oh, what the hell." She swiped the cup from his hand and downed half of it in one gulp, then set it down next to the paper on the breakfast bar. "And you have a partner of your own you should talk to."

Gary flashed back to Toni and Marissa last night, giggling like they were at some slumber party. "What's that mean?" 

"It means you've got it better than you realize, buddy, and you have to put in the effort to keep it that way." She grabbed her sweater from the chair and pulled it on. "You do your work, I'll do mine." 

Gary couldn't help it; even now, all business and lectures, she was so damn gorgeous he had to wrap a hand around her arm, just to keep her in sight for a few more seconds. "What about after work?" 

She met his eyes and grinned. "That's open for debate. Call me."

"You'll pick up?"

Her grin went all lopsided and nearly knocked him over. "Probably." And she was out the door, down the steps, rushing away from him at the speed of Brigatti.

Gary drank the rest of her coffee and settled down on the couch to check beyond the headlines. "Your timing's getting better," he told Cat, who'd come down from the pinball machine to wend his way around Gary's ankles. "But I think mine's getting worse." Cat jumped up next to him and meowed.

At first, he didn't see anything he needed to worry about. But then he hit page seven, where, mingled with articles about library funding and CTA fares, there was a story that sent him halfway down the stairs before he realized he was still in a t-shirt and boxers. He went back and pulled on jeans and the shirt Toni'd slept in before he raced downstairs to find Marissa.

She was at the bar, almost as if she'd been there all night, surrounded by receipt books and a stack of paperwork that was not in Braille, which meant it was for him. Reilly sat next to her stool; his tail banged against it when he spotted Gary. "Hey, Marissa."

"Hey there." She turned a smile on him that was a tiny bit forced and held out a colorful printed sheet. "I'm so glad you're up. I thought we could go over the new menus so we can start using them. I know better than to ask you to proofread, but--"

"Manny's going to die today."

She dropped the sheet on the bar. "Read."

"The body of Emmanuel Cabrerra, age fifty-four, was found just near the grounds of LorTech Pharmaceutical's facility northwest of Chicago late yesterday evening. Mr. Cabrerra, who had recently been admitted to the Arden Treatment Center, died of an apparent drug overdose sometime after one o'clock yesterday afternoon, when he was last seen by his doctor." Gary's voice shook a little, and Reilly moved closer, leaning his head against Gary's leg. "Officials at the center said they were investigating Mr. Cabrerra's disappearance and a suicide note he had left in his room when his body was found in the LorTech parking garage."

"Don't panic." Marissa's eyes were wide with at least a little bit of worry of her own. "You have lots of time to get out there and talk to Manny and his doctor. If the people taking care of him know what he's going to do, they can keep a closer eye on him and make sure he doesn't leave." 

Gary rubbed a finger over the headline, wishing he could erase it that easily. "Yeah, okay, I can do that, it's just—" 

"It doesn't sound like something Manny would do in the first place," Marissa finished. 

"No. I mean, the guy's obviously carrying around some guilt about what he did when he worked at LorTech, but every other time he's shown up in the paper, it's because he got hurt helping someone." Gary thought of Manny climbing into a sewer drain to save a hamster, building a receiver in a coffee shop to stop a drug dealer from supplying spa patients with drugs, fighting teenagers for cough syrup. "Or trying to. Manny's a klutz, and he sees the world through a different lens than most of us, but he's not suicidal. Is he?" 

"I'm hardly qualified to judge that based on one conversation with him." Marissa reached down and scratched the top of Reilly's head, while the dog looked between them. "Maybe something happened to change him—something could have come out in his therapy and set him off in a different direction than what you've seen. I think your first priority has to be to alert the staff out there and let the professionals help him deal with his guilt in some way other than overdosing in a parking garage."

Gary checked to make sure they were alone in the bar, then leaned in close and lowered his voice anyway. "This just doesn't feel right. The guy thinks he's Wonder Man. I get that's not normal, but there has to be something more we can do for him. Would you come with me? You'll understand more than I can about this psych stuff."

She blinked. "That's actually kind of flattering. But I can't, Gary. I have my rescheduled meeting with Dr. Chatham at ten-thirty and if I miss this one I'm completely sunk as far as the GRE goes." 

Gary opened his mouth to protest, but then he remembered what Toni had said. "Okay. Yeah, I get it. This school thing, it's important to you. I just hope I don't blow it with Manny's doctor."

Marissa tilted her head, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "If nothing else, you certainly understand Manny's impulse to help people. Maybe you can make them see that."

"Are you implying—"

"Not at all."

"You promised not to psychoanalyze me."

"I'm not." But she couldn't quite keep a straight face. 

"Yeah, well, just to make sure you're not, why don't I give you a ride up to campus? This Arden Center isn't that far from Northwestern."

"That'd be great." She picked up the menu sheet and held it out to him. "Just as soon as you give this a once-over and sign the approval."

"The world's not going to end if we don't make those changes today."

"But our staff will quit and we'll lose people it's taken years to train. Come on, Gary. Five minutes to look it over, and then we can talk about a few other things we need to deal with in the car." When he still didn't take it, all the humor dropped off her face, as if someone had flipped a switch. "I'm worried about Manny, too, and I don't mean to sound selfish. But you have at least until one to alert the staff to what he's going to do. I need to know you're willing to squeeze this place in once in a while, or it's really going to fall apart once I start the grad program."

Gary couldn't help it; he snorted. "Yeah, as if that's going to happen any time soon." That was a mistake, he realized immediately, mostly from the stormy look that crossed her face. "No, wait. That was for the idea of the paper ever giving me a break, okay? Not you going to school, because I know you're going to get in, and you're going to do great." He took the menu sheet from her, scanned it, and signed the space at the bottom. "All done."

"Did you read a word of it?"

"Every single one." Whether he'd absorbed them was another question, but none of the changes on that sheet were news to him, and he trusted Marissa and their printers to get the details right. "I've gotten pretty good at speed-reading with the paper. So get your school things together and we can head up there. I might even get done with Manny in time to pick you up afterward. There's nothing else in the paper right now. I mean, I can't promise, but I'll try."

"I know you can't. It's fine, I'll get back here the usual way if you don't show up. But I do want to know how Manny's doing. You'll call me?"

"Absolutely. And then I'll be back tonight, and I'll do whatever you need. Change the menus, help you study, give that Dr. Chatham a swift kick in the--"

"Gary!"

He hopped off the stool, feeling a lot better about handling Manny's situation, not to mention his own obligations, than he had a few minutes ago. "Get your stuff and we'll go." He patted Reilly's big yellow head. "You too, bud."

*~*~*

Arden Treatment Center was just a couple miles from the LorTech campus, set off from the rest of Forest Glen in a woodsy area cut through with a small stream. The grounds were surrounded by a wrought iron fence that looked like something out of a gated community. Gary pulled up and parked his Jeep in a visitor's space along the curved drive that fronted the main building.

Inside, every aspect of the lobby said "soothing": the waterfall fountain, the potted trees, the gigantic fish tank embedded in a side wall. He was greeted by a receptionist with curly blonde hair, a friendly face, and a nameplate that said "Roxanne." When he told her he wanted to see Manny Cabrerra, she nodded at a row of cushioned seats near the fountain. "Wait there and I'll see if he's available," she said, as if Manny was a broker or a lawyer and this was his office.

Gary eased himself onto a chair; despite the effort and money that had gone into putting visitors at ease, he felt jumpy, like the place was trying a little too hard. Roxanne punched a few keys on her computer, then picked up her phone, speaking too low for Gary to hear. To the left of her desk, a set of smoky glass doors lead to what he assumed were the patients' rooms. They slid open when a bulky guy in white scrubs walked by on the inside. He caught Gary's eye and nodded, but kept moving. The doors slid closed. 

The table next to his chair held a brochure about Arden, with photos of the grounds in summer, all green and gorgeous. Inside there were descriptions of therapy groups and cutting-edge treatments and meal plans. Maybe this place wasn't so bad, if you didn't mind other people setting your schedule, picking out your food, and making sure you weren't stressed. From all appearances, Manny's family had done right by him. This was no asylum haunted by ghosts of madmen past.

So why did Gary feel like one was about to jump out of the polished woodwork?

Roxanne's voice rose over the rush of the fountain. "Ward D? Sure, I'll tell him." Gary approached her desk; she hung up the phone and gave him a commiserating smile. "I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Cabrerra isn't available for guests today."

"You don't understand, I need to see him before he--" Gary's brain caught up with what he'd heard. "What's Ward D?" He tried a light, charming chuckle that landed like a lead balloon. "It doesn't stand for dangerous, does it?"

The smile dropped off her face. "Sir, I'm sorry, you'll have to leave."

"Can't you ask again? I really need to see him. Or his doctor. What did you say his name is?"

"I didn't. Next time, please call ahead and save yourself a trip."

"A trip isn't the only thing I need to save." Gary's mutter as he stepped back was lost in the whoosh of entry doors opening for a woman and three small, noisy kids who made straight for the waterfall. 

"No, no, Mommy told you, we're here to see Uncle Bill." The woman shot an apologetic look at Roxanne, who got up and went to help pull the kids out of the water.

Gary looked over at the smoky interior doors. It couldn't be that easy, could it? But when he approached them, with one final check to make sure Roxanne didn't see him, they slid open. Gary ducked inside, holding his breath for an alarm, but none sounded. The doors slid shut.

The room in front of him was almost a mirror of the lobby, complete with a fish tank and lots of plants. There wasn't a fountain, though. That space was filled with small tables where people in civilian clothes sat playing board games and reading—or they had been, until he came in. Now they all looked up at him with hopeful, expectant faces. 

"Uh, hi." He gave a little wave. "Anybody here know Manny Cabrerra?" He held out his hand, shoulder high. "About this high? Thinks he's a super hero?" All the heads shook. "Okay, how about Ward D?"

Some of the people went back to their books and games as if he'd flipped a switch and turned off their interest. A couple of them shook their heads, eyes wide. A man Gary's age with close-cropped dark hair frowned and opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly when someone behind Gary cleared his throat.

Gary turned to find another man in a white doctor's coat glowering at him. The guy was half a head shorter than Gary, with small, pinpoint eyes, a snub nose, and a wide mouth. There was something weird about the proportions of his face, as if he'd been collaged from other people's pictures.

"I understand you're looking for Mr. Cabrerra?"

Gary nodded, then jumped into an explanation before the guy—or the much-bigger guys in scrubs behind him--could throw him out. "I'm a friend of his, and I'm worried about him. I think he might hurt himself today."

"Come with me," the doctor said in a short, snappish tone that implied unquestioning obedience. He started down a hall. Gary followed, but not before he caught the patient who'd been about to talk to him shaking his head morosely.

The doctor led Gary down a hallway lined with doors, each with its own nameplate. One of the orderlies, the same one who'd walked past the door when Gary was in the lobby, followed at Gary's heels. The nameplate on the door the doctor opened said, "Donald Feldman, MD." 

Dr. Feldman sat behind his desk and indicated the chair in front of it. Gary wasn't sure if he wanted to sit, but there wasn't much room in the office to do anything else, so he sat on the edge of the chair. Feldman peered at him with his beady eyes for a long moment before he said, "You're not related to Mr. Cabrerra, are you?"

"No, I'm a friend." A friend who probably understood who Manny was now better than his family did. "I'm worried because I think he might be planning something. Could you please check he's in his room and can't hurt himself?"

"I assure you, Mr.--?"

"Hobson. Gary Hobson."

"Mr. Hobson, your friend is in the very best of hands. You have nothing to worry about."

"You might," Gary said without thinking. "Did you see how easy it was for me to get in here? Ever think about how easy that makes it for people to get out?"

"This is not a prison, Mr. Hobson. Our patients are all here voluntarily, including Mr. Cabrerra."

"So I can visit him?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible, as you've already been told." This guy would have been a good principal, Gary thought. "Now, if I've put your mind at ease—"

"But you haven't. Look, I'm not trying to blame you. I just don't want my friend to hurt himself. If you're not going to let me see him, can you at least keep a close eye on him today? Make sure he doesn't take off?" Drug overdose, the paper had said. "Or steal some of your medicine, or—"

Feldman shot a startled look over Gary's shoulder at the orderly waiting in the doorway. Gary couldn't tell what it meant, but he didn't like the firm line that Feldman's oversized mouth settled into, or the quick nod that was the orderly's response. "Please," Gary went on, hoping he could get something through to them that would help Manny before they inevitably kicked him out, "Just look out for him, okay? That's all I'm—hey!" 

The orderly grabbed Gary's arm and lifted him out of the chair as if he were Marissa's size. "Looks like you're going to get your wish, buddy." 

"What the hell?" Gary tried to yank his arm out of the guy's grip, but it was like iron. 

"You wanted to see Ward D," Dr. Feldman said behind him. "Let's go. We can talk more there."

The orderly pulled Gary out into the hallway, down a few more doors, and around a corner. "Okay, that's—" Gary managed to get his feet planted under him, and the orderly stopped. "—that's great, really. You don't have to force me," he added with a glare at the orderly, even though every cell in his body was yelling at him to get the hell out of whatever this was. But this hall wasn't different than the first one, except the doors had numbers instead of names. Maybe this was the right thing. If he could find out where Manny was, he could stop him. Or maybe this was just going to make things worse. If he could at least get the paper out of his back pocket—he half-twisted to reach for it before he realized that would be a mistake. 

"Very well." Feldman's mouth twisted in what was probably supposed to be a smile. He pointed toward the end of the hall. "Room 227." 

Gary started in the direction Feldman had indicated. The orderly's bulk filled the hall behind them, ensuring Gary couldn't go any other way. At the end of it there was a glass door that offered a view of the grounds, with the same blazing red maples Gary had seen from the front. The doors along either side of this hall were numbered as well: D219, D221, D223. 

A door at the end of the hall flew open and a red-and-black blur hurled out of it, followed by a pair of orderlies. "No! Not the baron's lab, no way!" the blur shouted, and one of the orderlies shoved him into a wall, stopping him long enough for Gary to recognize him.

"Manny!" By the time Gary reached him, the orderlies had him by the arms. "Hey, be careful, don't hurt him."

"You can't be here, Bruce—I mean Clark." Manny threw off the orderlies with surprising strength and grabbed the front of Gary's shirt, propelling him into a wall. Manny's eyes were wild with—what? Fear, and pain, and sheer desperation. His voice was hoarse and croaky. "You have to get out of here. They want us to drink Kryptonite!"

"That's enough," Feldman said. "Mr. Cabrerra, you should be in your room."

"They took me out!" Manny didn't release his hold on Gary. "They were going to take me to Baron Zemo's lair."

"You're mistaken." Feldman spoke in a smooth, calming voice, hands slightly spread in front of him. "That's the delusion talking, remember?"

Gary looked away from Manny and realized they were trapped. The orderly who'd brought him from Feldman's office was blocking the hall, and the others were in front of the doors. Was this Manny's escape, or were these people really taking him somewhere? 

"No!" Manny coughed, then looked Gary right in the eye as Feldman stepped aside and the orderlies closed in. "Don't drink the Kryptonite," he rasped. One of the orderlies pulled him off Gary. Manny struggled as he was led back into the room he'd come from, shouting hoarsely about Kryptonite and Baron Zemo. "You can't treat Wonder Man like this!" he yelled as the door closed. "I'm an Avenger!"

Gary turned to Feldman. "You see what I mean? Something's wrong, he's not himself. I don't think he's suicidal, but he's--" What was he? Kryptonite. Zemo. Clark Kent. Somewhere in all that babble, there was a message. Things were not as they appeared here, not by a long shot. "What have you guys been giving him?" he asked, and Feldman flinched. "Where were you going to take him?" He advanced on Feldman, who glared up at him with those tiny, birdlike eyes. "What the hell kind of place are you running?"

He never got an answer. A sharp pain flashed behind his ear. The orange carpet blurred up to meet his face, but before it reached him, everything went dark and he kept right on falling endlessly into the black.

* * *

Dr. Chatham's office smelled faintly of antiseptic, which was odd. Most professors' offices smelled like dust, books, and old carpet. But then, most of her professors put the psychology and counseling they taught into practice when interacting with their students. Dr. Chatham's brusque questions made Marissa feel as if she were in a police interrogation room. His chipped, dismissive responses to her own concerns made her wonder why he'd been retained on faculty for so many years and grateful she'd never taken any of his courses. 

It started with his very first question: "Will you have that dog with you?"

As if a guide dog was the equivalent of some mutt off the street. "Yes, I will." She didn't feel the need to explain why. "Reilly is perfectly well behaved, as Dr. Ogoyu can attest."

"A perfect gentleman of a dog," Dr. Ogoyu said, with an edge in her voice that said she thought Reilly was the only gentleman in the room.

Dr. Chatham grunted, then launched into a reading of the list of accommodations the university would be making for her testing situation--a private room where she could listen to audio recordings of the questions, tactile figure supplements for some math and geometry questions, an extra proctor to sit with her--in a bored monotone. It could have been worse, considering how antagonistic he'd been on the phone. Marissa guessed she had Dr. Ogoyu to thank for that. 

"You have someone to review the practice tests with you?" Dr. Chatham asked.

She nodded, though she was starting to believe she'd have to hire a study partner at this point. The chances of Gary keeping his promise, much as he might want to, were slim. 

Dr. Ogoyu remained silent for most of the meeting. But at the end, when Marissa thanked Dr. Chatham for his time, Dr. Ogoyu added, "Marissa is a fine student, David. She'll produce a result worthy of your time."

Another grunt. Charming.

As she stepped into the hall and started down the hallway with Dr. Ogoyu, Marissa listened for other people. Of course there was no sign of Gary. She was foolish for even half-expecting one. 

"You do understand that the GRE is just the first hurdle, don't you?" Dr. Ogoyu asked. "This is a very competitive program. I'll be happy to write you a letter of recommendation as long as I know you're fully committed, not only to being accepted into the program, but to succeeding in it."

"Of course I am," Marissa said, and tried to hide how prickly the veiled meaning--that once again, she'd have to do twice as well as anyone else to prove herself--made her feel. Dr. Ogoyu was on her side. "I do have other obligations, as you know, but school comes first."

"Balancing all those obligations can be difficult. It's only going to get worse if you get accepted into the program." She leaned in; the scent of jasmine drove the last traces of antiseptic from Marissa's nostrils. "I meant what I told Dr. Chatham. You're ready for this. You understand the concepts and you have compassion for clients, the heart for the work. But you will have to give it more time than you give your little bar."

Marissa nodded. She couldn't tell Dr. Ogoyu that running her "little bar" meant helping Gary with the paper, which often came before school because it had to. People's lives were at stake. People like Manny. Her fingers itched to pull her cell phone out of her bag and check for a message. Gary should have called by now.

"I understand," she told Dr. Ogoyu. "School is absolutely my first priority. Which reminds me--I've been trying to settle on a place to do my senior practicum next semester. Have you heard of the Arden Treatment Center?" It was such a hypocritical thing to do, proclaiming her commitment to school and then using it to find out more about Manny, that she nearly gave herself whiplash. 

"I know of it." Dr. Ogoyu sounded mildly surprised. "Do you have a connection there?"

"Not exactly, no." Marissa hated how smoothly the half-truths slid out of her mouth, but on the other hand, maybe it was time she used her conflicting priorities to solve a problem instead of causing them. "A friend mentioned it, and I wondered if it would be a good fit for me."

"I'll look into it."

"Could you do it soon?" She pushed her voice higher, hoping she sounded overeager to please. "I really want to get things settled." 

"Of course, if you're serious about it. Are you ready for your seminar presentation? You're next week, right?"

Marissa nodded. "I have all the handouts printed and the text is written up. I'll practice over the weekend."

"Sounds good. Can you find your way out?"

She reached down and patted Reilly's head. "We found our way in."

"Excellent. I'll see you for class tomorrow."

Marissa let Reilly lead her to the building entrance, but again, there was no sign of Gary. She dug her cell out of her purse. No messages, no answer at Gary's loft, and Carrie answered at the bar. 

"You're going to be here soon, right? AJ says happy hour will be a crush. Some kind of football thing?" For someone who worked in a sports bar, Carrie could barely name most of Chicago's teams.

"There's a Thursday night college game," Marissa supplied. "I think Northern Illinois is playing."

"That's it. And there's an air show at Navy Pier this weekend, so there's all these tourists coming in for appetizers and beer."

Air shows and football games were regular occurrences. How was she supposed to make school a priority? "Gary's not there?"

"Nope. Should he be?"

Absolutely, he should have been. Or well on his way. But then again, who knew what he'd run into trying to help Manny, or how many other stories had popped up in the paper in the meantime? "You know Gary. He comes and goes. I'll get there as soon as I can."

*~*~*

Not only was happy hour busy, the dinner rush went on until seven-thirty, and by then the place was full of nightly regulars and fans of mid-major college football. Though she ducked into the office at the top of every hour to listen to local news on the radio, there was no story about Manny, or about any suicide. Marissa kept telling herself as she checked and re-checked her voice mail that Gary would have let her know if something had happened to Manny, that he was more likely to forget to call her if everything was fine.

He was probably out with Toni, she decided when she hadn't heard from him by ten. She tried Toni's number once, but it went right to voicemail. She didn't leave a message. If they were finally on a real date, neither one of them would appreciate the interruption. She called it a night at eleven, leaving AJ and Sarah to close the place down.

* * *

Once he surrendered to it, falling through the dark was peaceful. No one grabbing him, no cryptic clues about superheroes to decode. No one needing him. Just falling. As long as he didn't land, he could do this forever.

At some point, seconds or hours after the fall started, there was a soft, insistent meow in his ear, a brush of fur against his hand. The thought that someone needed him, was waiting for him to help, tangled through the darkness.

Help was what he did. He would help. As soon as he stopped falling. As soon as he could open his eyes. 

As soon as he remembered his name.

* * *

The next morning, Marissa got to McGinty's early, even though she usually didn't come in on Fridays until after her one o'clock class. She promised herself she wasn't trying to passive-aggressively prove anything to Gary about how much of her time was devoted to the bar, or to Dr. Ogoyu about her ability to balance her priorities. It was just that she needed to be there to pick up the slack. She tried not to let it bother her that all those things could be true. 

She took off Reilly's harness and filled his water bowl and Cat's, though she didn't hear his light padding paws or the familiar meow. Reilly settled onto the couch in the office and Marissa paused for a moment, listening for sound in the loft above, but there was none.

The kitchen and bar were equally quiet. The staff weren't due for another hour, but she made a big pot of coffee anyway. When it was done, she filled two mugs--one with cream, one black--and took the black coffee upstairs and knocked on the loft door. No answer. She swept her cane over the floor but there was no paper on the landing, either. She knocked louder. "Gary?" Still nothing. She opened the door and announced herself, listened for snores that didn't come, and finally felt the bed. Empty. She sat down on it with a sigh, and Cat hopped up next to her and bumped at her hand with his head, wanting to be petted. "There you are. Did he come back at all last night?" she asked. 

She sat there for a minute or so more, engaging in the eternal question: should she be worried for Gary, or should she hold onto her annoyance with him? It was only seven-thirty, but the paper came earlier than that. It was entirely possible that Gary had come home after close and was already out again taking care of an early story. Or that he was at Toni's and the paper had come to him there. If the former was true, it meant he would show up cranky at some point; if the latter, it meant he'd show up goofily happy. If that happened, she'd be goofily happy on his behalf—and Toni's--despite the way he'd double-ditched her the day before.

Cat let out a plaintive mew. "I know what you mean," Marissa told him. "It's hard to be mad at him when he's not here to be mad at."

She didn't let herself consider the possibility that he might not show up at all until an hour or so later. She was entering the final numbers from the day before into the books when Cat hopped up into her lap and butted at her typing hands, then strolled over to Gary's desk. He sat there mewling impatiently until Marissa went to him. Underneath his haunches there was a newspaper. "Is this tomorrow's?" It had to be, if Cat was being so frantic about it. Which meant Gary was in some kind of trouble. "Why can't you put it in Braille?"

She dialed Toni's cell. "Is Gary with you?" she asked as soon as Toni picked up.

"Marissa?" There was a note of annoyance in her voice, and Marissa knew she'd interrupted something important.

"I know you're busy, but I need to find him."

Toni lowered her voice. "I haven't seen him since yesterday morning, when he promised me at least a phone call. Which I never got. Sorry. Right now I'm pretty busy with--"

"I haven't heard from him since yesterday morning either," Marissa said, plowing past whatever it was Toni was busy with. Surely she'd want to know this. "I don't think he came home last night. Something's wrong." 

"Hold on." There were muffled sounds in the background, and then the click of a door closing and slight echo as Toni asked, "What's up?" 

Two words: _something's wrong_. That's all it took, and Toni was with her, she _got_ it. For the first time since Chuck had left, Marissa felt the relief of knowing someone else understood about the paper. She took a deep breath and explained the story about Manny's suicide that Gary had gone to stop the day before, and what she thought Cat's actions and the paper showing up without Gary meant. "I know it sounds strange to fixate on the cat, but he's all I have to go on right now."

"It is strange, but it's Gary. Strange is pretty much his normal. Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll come over. Maybe twenty. I have to figure out what to tell my partner."

Twenty minutes was enough time to do something else, Marissa decided. She called the Arden Treatment Center and was told there was no record of a Gary Hobson in their visitors' log, and no need to worry about Manny Cabrerra. "He's in seclusion, though," the woman who answered the phone told her. "Not even family is allowed to see him, at his own request. It's pretty much standard when our patients arrive. They need time to get their feet under them."

"But you're sure he's okay? He's not suicidal?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know about that, and even if I did, I couldn't say so without clearance," the woman said in the same chipper tone she might talk about the weather or a cookie recipe. "Have a great day!"

"But—" Click. And that was that. Marissa tried calling back, but the number rang and rang and wasn't picked up. 

Toni arrived at the same time as the lunch crew. "What did you tell them at work?" Marissa asked as she led her into the office and handed her the paper. 

"That I wanted to follow up on a lead in the case. Which is technically true, since that paper is the only reason we know about Hennepin's involvement with O'Reardon. It's tomorrow's." There was the sound of pages turning, more slowly than Gary usually did it. Maybe he'd told the truth about becoming a speed-reader, or maybe Toni was just making sure she didn't miss anything. "He's not in it."

Marissa stood still despite her feet urging her to move, to go, to find Gary, though she didn't have the first clue where to begin looking for him. "Where is he? Is there anything else in there that can tell us where he is, maybe about Manny?"

"No." The pages rattled again. "I mean, there are stories in the paper, things I'm sure Hobson would take care of if he were here, but nothing that seems to point directly to him."

Marissa told her about the useless phone call. "Maybe if you talked to them, told them you're a police officer, they'd tell you more."

"I kind of doubt it, at least about Hobson. They might let me talk to Cabrerra if I push it, but even before he ended up there nobody thought he was a credible witness." 

Marissa drummed her fingers against her crossed her arms. "There has to be something we can do. You said there are stories in the paper? Let's at least take care of those. Maybe one of them will lead us to Gary."

"I doubt it. There's a fire in an office building in the South Loop, a window washer who falls off a scaffolding, and a carjacking with a toddler in the car."

"All things Gary would take care of, if he were here. Give me the information in first two stories and I'll find numbers to call and warn the people involved."

"You don't want to put out the fire and catch the window washer yourself?" Toni said with a note of amusement. "He would."

"True." And he'd probably get himself both sooty and soaked in the process. "I think this once we can let our fingers do the walking. I don't know about the carjacking, though."

"There's no name for the driver, so we can't call her. Seems like it needs direct intervention. I can take care of it. Not that you couldn't stop it if you put your mind to it, but—"

"But I don't have a badge or a gun," Marissa finished. "It's fine. I'm just glad I have some help. I know Gary will appreciate it when we find him."

"Which will be the next priority, if he doesn't turn up with some ridiculous explanation before we're done. He'll probably have averted the next plague or bombing or bus accident, and you and I will be the only ones who believe him."

"Like Superman," Marissa said, unable to shake Manny's babbling from her mind.

"Exactly like that. Maybe the paper just showed up so we can do these things and let him rest up, or finish something else that sidetracked him."

"Toni Brigatti, don't you dare bullshit me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Toni said in a tone that implied she didn't have time for that anyway. "Make your phone calls and I'll let you know how the stories change."

"You're really okay with this?"

"The paper? It's not as impossible as it sounds, once you get used to it."

"What about finding Gary? How do we do that?"

"Good old-fashioned police work. It's a place to start, anyway. I'll take care of the carjacking and then get on it. I'll need his credit and bank card numbers and a description of what was he wearing--oh, sorry."

Despite her worry, Marissa grinned. "You would know that better than I would."

"He--uh--wasn't dressed for the day when I left."

"Oh yeah? Good for you." She tucked that morsel of information away to use at a later date. Not against Toni—she'd never do that. But for teasing Gary? Absolutely. Just as soon as they figured out where the hell he'd gone.

* * *

Toni half-guided, half-dragged Xavier Morrison, unsuccessful carjacker and unwitting near-kidnapper, through the maze of desks in the bullpen, determinedly avoiding the stares from her colleagues. She pointed him toward a chair next to her desk. "Sit." 

He held up his cuffed wrists. "You gonna take these off?"

"Not a chance."

Winslow watched from his desk across the aisle, mouth twisted in amusement. "This your lead?"

"I got sidetracked." More like derailed. If Gary had been the one in charge of changing this story, it would have taken him just a few minutes to divert the driver or warn Morrison about the kid. But Toni was a cop; she couldn't let a criminal get away. What would have been a thirty-minute detour for Gary had locked her into hours of paperwork she hadn't planned on and didn't have time for. What she _needed_ was to to get back up to speed on whatever Hennepin was telling them about O'Reardon and make sure someone from Victims' Services had been assigned to help Alice Hennepin. Not to mention the rather pressing matter of figuring out where the hell Gary had gone. This was exactly why she wanted his magic paper out of her interior coat pocket and away from her day job. She didn't have time to pick up his slack while he took a vacation somewhere. 

Of course, Marissa didn't think it was a vacation, and Toni was inclined to agree with her. While Morrison let out sighs worthy of a stage actor and rattled his handcuffs, she took a moment to check messages on her work phone and cell. Nothing, and she was sure if Marissa had heard anything from Hobson she would have called. Still, Toni wasn't about to call her, or check the newspaper, with Winslow watching her every move. He was supposed to be tracking down the names Hennepin had spilled in connection with O'Reardon's merry band of drug salesmen, but whenever she looked over at him he was raising his eyebrows or shaking his head, as if she were deliberately avoiding their big case.

Filling out the arrest form and incident report took the better part of an hour, with Morrison making her feel like the world's worst dentist, the way she had to pull information out of him. When he finally broke down and started talking, he tried to feed her a sob story about lifting cars to pay for his mom's prescriptions. 

"That'd break my heart," she told him after a quick online records search, "if your mom's medicines weren't being taken care of by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Eight to twenty for counterfeiting? Seems like she should have left you with a stash."

"Yeah, well she didn't. But I come by crime naturally, as you can see. I can't help it."

"Tell it to Officer Krupke."

"Who?"

Winslow snorted. Toni stood and motioned to Morrison to do the same. "I have to take this guy to booking," she told Winslow. She rubbed a thumb over the unresponsive phone in her coat pocket. "Do me a favor. I want anything we have on the Arden Treatment Center. It's a mental health facility in Forest Glen."

"I have my own work to do." Winslow tapped a pencil on the open file in front of him, then waved it in Morrison's direction. "Or have you forgotten we're supposed to be building a case against James O'Reardon?"

"And our witness against Hennepin is at Arden, where we haven't been able to talk to him because he's in treatment. I just want to make sure there's nothing hinky going on with all that."

"Mmm-hmm." His nose crinkled when he shot her an evil grin. He probably thought it was adorable, but really it just made him look even more weasel-like than usual. "Sure you're not looking for a placement for your boyfriend?"

"Maybe for my partner," she retorted. "Look, you can bet if any of the defense attorneys find out what's going on with Cabrerra, they'll be all over it. We need to make this stuff stick."

"Okay, okay." Winslow held up his hands in surrender. "Just taking an interest in my partner's personal life. Is that so wrong?"

"The way you do it? Yes," Toni snapped, and marched Morrison off to booking, ignoring Winslow's question about why she was still wearing her coat.

On her way back, she stopped in the ladies' room and checked the newspaper, spreading it open on the sink once she was sure she was alone. That was one benefit of working in a boys' club—she usually had the bathroom to herself. A quick scan of the paper told her the window washer hadn't fallen and no one had been hurt in the fire. Marissa must have been able to get through to the right people. Good thing, as Toni never would have been able to deal with them, not with all the time she'd put into stopping the carjacking. She'd have to ask Gary how exactly he planned his schedule, if planning was ever involved in his craziness.

No. He wasn't crazy. She was thinking like Winslow, and she was done with that. She'd thought knowing Gary's secret would clear everything between them, like closing a case. But it had complicated her life in ways she'd never expected. The knot at the base of her neck tightened as she dialed Marissa's cell. "Hey, it's me. Your stories are gone."'

"And yours?"

"Still there, but only because I arrested the guy before he could take the car and the kid." 

Marissa let out a sigh of relief, but her voice was just as tense when she asked, "What about Gary?"

"Haven't heard a word. I take it you didn't either?"

"Not a thing. I keep checking the loft in case he's snuck in, but he hasn't, and his Jeep's not out in the alley where he usually parks it. Cat is following me everywhere." 

"Ew."

"You don't like Cat?"

"I'm allergic. Or I was. Sorry, that's beside the point."

"Cat kind of is the point, a lot of the time. I just wish I could figure out what he's pointing at. Right now I think he's just as lost as we are."

"We're not lost here." Gary might be, but she was not. "I have the entire CPD at my disposal. I'll put a few wheels in motion. He's bound to turn up." He had to, because Toni couldn't manage both the paper and her job for much longer. 

"What can I do to help? I have senior seminar in an hour and a half, and I should leave now, but if there's anything that'll help find Gary, I can skip."

Toni massaged the back of her neck and glared at the unresponsive newspaper. Some crystal ball. "You should go to class," she said. "There's still nothing in the paper, so he's probably okay." Unless he was somewhere, hurt or worse, where he wouldn't be found by the time the paper went to press. 

"If he needs us, the paper will show us. It has to." Even Marissa sounded as though her faith might be wavering. 

"Forget the paper," Toni said. "I'm going to tackle this with good old-fashioned police work. Call me after class. I should have some kind of lead by then."

Back at her desk, she found a stack of files on O'Reardon that Records had brought up. Winslow had nothing interesting on Arden. Like any mental health clinic, it had its share of escapees now and then, but nothing sinister. "It sounds really nice. I'm considering a vacation there myself. So can we move on?" He made a grab at the tower of files, but Toni put up a hand.

"We need to know more about Cabrerra."

"The guy's a nutjob, Toni. He's literally certifiable." Winslow half-sat, resting his hip on the edge of her desk. "What is it with you and all these witnesses from the cuckoo's nest? I mean, Hobson at least is good-looking, but Cabrerra's an ex-con, on top of everything else."

"That's right, he is." Toni nudged him off her desk and dug through the new folders to the ones she'd been working on when Marissa had called that morning. "We pulled his file, right?"

"Yup. I called the family to confirm the details." Winslow jabbed a thumb toward Paul's office, a tiny space that was set off from the bullpen cubicles by glass windows and a half-glass door. When it came right down to it, it was just as much a fishbowl as Toni's desk. Paul just had the benefit of shutting out some of the noise every now and then. "He has the file."

"I talked to his parole officer yesterday," Paul said when Toni went over to ask about Cabrerra. Winslow followed her into the office like an eager puppy. "Says the family's been pushing to get him institutionalized--to get him help--ever since he got out of jail. Where have you been all morning, anyway?"

"She stopped a carjacking," Winslow said, cutting off her explanation. "Went out after a lead and—" He waggled his eyebrows. Toni wanted to slap them off his face. "— _just happened_ to see a totally unconnected crime in progress."

"Yeah, I did, and I got the guy off the streets before he could kidnap a two-year-old," Toni said. They both looked at her like she was the one who ought to be locked up. "In a city this size odds are one of us will stumble across a crime now and then. It was just bad luck. For the criminal."

Paul stared her down for a couple seconds. "You know who you sound like, don't you?"

"I don't know." Winslow crossed his arms and gave a judicious pout. "She sounds a whole lot more believable than he usually does. What was that line he fed you Monday? Something about his big toe?" Again with the eyebrow waggle; again with the overwhelming urge to smack him. "You know what they say about the size of a guy's—"

"Enough!" Toni pointed out the door. "Go find me something we can use to keep Hennepin in custody."

"Geez," Winslow muttered as he complied. "Just talkin' 'bout Shaft. You dig it?"

"I swear he must have eaten paint chips as a kid." Toni looked to Paul for support, but his doubt was still written all over his face. "You got something to say?"

He lifted his hands. "Nope."

"Good, because I came in here for Cabrerra's file. I want to follow up with his family, make sure we'll be able to use his testimony."

After another assessing look, Paul handed it over. "Hennepin claims O'Reardon is moving a shipment a week from today. I'm leaning toward low-level surveillance so we can catch him in the act. You good with that?"

"Sure." Toni didn't look up from the file. Cabrerra's crime had been painted as corporate skullduggery, just another cog in the LorTech machine who'd tried to make a name for himself by fudging the results of drug tests, but something in the big picture was off. For one thing, LorTech hadn't pushed for a long sentence. They'd even sent a company rep to testify at his parole hearing for early release and offered to rehire him, though there wasn't any evidence that had happened. Why would they go to bat for an ex-employee who'd tarnished their reputation?

"That's all you have to say? 'Sure'?" When she looked up, Paul's brow was furrowed in confusion. "What the hell's gotten into you? This is your mysterious source's info we're working off, here, the source who told you Hennepin was in league with O'Reardon in the first place. What does this source have to say about the shipment? Should we be monitoring the docks, the airport, the storage unit?"

All her source had had to say was that Hennepin was going to end up dead in O'Reardon's storage unit. She'd worked the rest out herself. "I don't know." 

"Maybe you'd better ask."

"I'd love to be able to do that, but right now I can't." She shifted uneasily; Paul wasn't the department's top interrogator for nothing. "He's missing."

"That doesn't sound good. What hap—wait. He." Paul stood, forcing Toni to look up at him. "I thought Alice Hennepin was your source, the way you've been protecting her. If it's not her, who—" He broke off, frowning at the folder in her hand. "Cabrerra's in the hospital, and he didn't even know Hennepin's name."

Toni closed her eyes, but whatever expression her churning thoughts—hospital, Cabrerra, the last place anyone knew Gary was going—wrote on her face, Paul read it loud and clear.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Toni. _Hobson_?"

She set her jaw against another argument she didn't have time for. "When has he ever steered us wrong?"

"Let's see." Paul ticked off his list on his fingers. "Messing up the bust in the first place. Stumbling into the middle of Frank Scanlon's murder and leading us on a manhunt. Lying to me about how he knew about that militia group a couple years ago. Hell, Toni, he brought your witness's baby right into the clutches of the Guyette family."

"He saved her life. He helped us close every single one of those cases! Why can't you trust him for once?"

"I'm still trying to figure out why you always do. The first time I met him, it was because a transient fell off a roof and died." Paul planted his spread fingers on his desk and leaned toward her. "The guy's not Superman. You know that, right? He doesn't have a perfect track record."

Toni knew about the transient; she'd been through Gary's file more than once. As much of it as she could manage, anyway—it was a damn thick file. She'd traded Paul the story of what had happened to the transient for a couple of Scotch and sodas one night. What was important now was to find Gary, so the file could get thicker. If she was going to do that, she needed Paul to help, or at least to stop their ongoing argument long enough to let her figure out the next step. 

She took a deep breath and said, as calmly as she could, "I trust him because of evidence. Experience. And Zeke Crumb. You really should talk to Crumb sometime. He might set you straight about a lot of things." Paul stood up straight and blinked, as if she'd surprised him for once. "Look, Gary Hobson might be able to tell us more about O'Reardon, but I can't ask him right now. He's been missing since yesterday, when he went to Arden to check on Manny Cabrerra."

"He's been missing for twenty-four hours? Why didn't you say something?"

"Are you kidding me? The way you guys talk about him? Besides, I didn't know until a couple of hours ago." 

"Know what?" Winslow said from the doorway. Why couldn't he go missing for ten damn minutes?

"Hobson's gone missing," Paul told him. 

Winslow shook his head morosely. "The course of true love never did runneth smoothethly."

Before Paul could tell him that Gary was her source, before Paul could put two and two together about the timing and the carjacking and come up with something that approached a magic newspaper, Toni took control of the room. "He was last seen headed over to Arden to talk to Cabrerra over twenty-four hours ago. He was supposed to call me last night and I never heard from him, and he didn't show up at his bar this morning."

"Which is also where he lives," Winslow said, as if that was the most suspicious thing about Gary.

"I'm telling you guys, there's something weird going on if both our witnesses were at that hospital yesterday and one of them is missing. I want to know what happened to him."'

"All this because you didn't have a date last night?" Winslow asked. "Did you get Captain Banks's memo about wasting department resources?"

"All this is because my cop senses are telling me something's wrong." She nailed Paul with a look that reminded him her closed case rate was just as high as his, and it was only the fact that he'd been in the department longer that gave him senior detective status and this closet of an office. 

Paul matched her look for a moment, assessing. When he rubbed his chin, she knew she'd won, though he did fire one last condescending shot. "I can tell you aren't going to be any good to me on O'Reardon until you know what happened to Hobson. Take a couple hours and track him down."

"Thanks," she said, biting back the rest of what she wanted to say—that this whole sprawling case was as much hers as his, and that she was going to look for Gary—for her witness—whether or not he gave his permission. O'Reardon's shipment wasn't due for another week; if she hadn't found Gary by then, she'd probably never find him at all.

She put a BOLO out for Gary and for his Jeep, gave his description to the hospitals and morgues and instructed them to call her immediately if any John Does showed up, and called Arden just to confirm what they'd told Marissa: there was no record of a Gary Hobson on the visitor's log, and Manny Cabrerra was undergoing treatment but was safe and sound at their facility. His doctor, the receptionist reported, thought it best if Mr. Cabrerra stayed out of contact with the outside world for a few more days, but he would be happy to set up an interview with her next week.

After that call, well aware that Winslow and Paul were watching her even more closely now, she went back to the ladies room and checked the paper again. Nothing, and no messages from Hobson on her cell or her work phone. He could be anywhere—could have run his Jeep into a ditch out of sight of a main road, could have been mugged or gotten lost or fallen in the lake, any one of a dozen different things that were usually the cause when a civilian went missing.

But he wasn't exactly a civilian, and the connection to Manny Cabrerra kept pulling at her. Whether it was O'Reardon's doing—though a couple of witnesses who'd messed up a single measly drug deal didn't seem worth the attention he'd draw taking them out—or because of something else, there was more going on than some random guy forgetting to touch base with his friends. She read through Winslow's notes on the phone interview with Cabrerra's family—nothing too off there, but the address caught her eye. "Hey, Ringo," she said when her partner came back from a late lunch, "did you ask Cabrerra's wife about money?"

"Never call me that, I told you," he hissed. 

She shrugged. "It slipped. Sorry. Did you?"

"What money are you talking about?"

"They live in Lincoln Park." She flipped through the information. "Bailey Cabrerra is an administrative assistant at an insurance firm. The son is a student at DePaul. How can they afford a brownstone valued at one point six million when Cabrerra was in prison for five years and hasn't worked for the past six? For that matter, how are they paying for that treatment center?"

Winslow shrugged. "Independently wealthy?"

"Maybe. But if that's the case why's she working at all?"

Even though it was probably a rabbit trail, the loose end bothered her, and what else did she have to go on? She called the Cabrerra residence. Manny's son Drew answered the phone. He hesitated and stuttered at her first mention of his father. "I'm just trying to clear up a few details," Toni said, trying to put him at ease enough to give her something that would make all this make sense. "We want to paint a clear picture of who he is. He's giving eyewitness testimony in a very important case."

"You've met him," Drew said with a barely contained snort. "You know why anything he'd tell you is suspect."

"Because he wants to be a super hero?" 

"He's convinced he is one."

"And so you and your mother, you got him help?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, it seemed like the only thing to do."

"How did you find out about the place you sent him? Arden, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it was…" Drew's pause went on too long to be anything but shifty. "It was recommended by someone who knows Dad and knows places like that."

"Was this someone a friend of your dad's? Maybe someone he worked with?"

"I don't—I can't—"

Toni took pity on the kid. "Drew. There was a settlement, wasn't there? Your dad took the fall for someone—maybe a bunch of someones—at LorTech, and in exchange for him going to prison, they made sure you and your mom could keep your house, that you could go to college."

There was a long moment of silence. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"But they recommended Arden, didn't they? Are they paying for that, too?" When he didn't answer, she said, "Look, I just want to make sure your dad's getting the help he needs. I don't want to take on a whole new investigation, not into LorTech, not into you. Nothing you say here is going to come back to haunt you." Well, it might if his family's source of funding dried up, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

"Okay," he finally said, and sounded relieved. "Yeah. Mr. Huston, Dad's old boss, he said Dr. Feldman at Arden was an expert in cases like Dad's. He said if anyone could help him, it was Feldman, and if we sent Dad to Arden, we wouldn't have to worry about him embarrassing us anymore."

That gave Toni pause. On the surface, it was a fairly innocuous thing to say. But from another angle—a paranoid angle, sure, but she was a cop, and in her work paranoia was justified—it was just this side of sinister. 

"Detective?" Drew said. "I don't think my dad's embarrassing. But I don't understand what he's become. He was living on the streets, trying to help people who didn't want him around. He needs help. What alternative did we have?"

"I understand," Toni assured him. But she didn't like the big picture that was coming into focus around Manny Cabrerra and LorTech, and she had no idea at all what it had to do with Gary. 

"Get me that info you pulled on Arden," she told Winslow. "There has to be something we've missed."

* * *

The cat left him alone and he fell. Or maybe he was floating. Hard to tell the difference in the soup of peace, of muffled, cottony darkness. Then a tiny jab pricked his skin, and he remembered he had skin.

For one last, perfect moment, he was almost nothing, just another piece of the dark. Then the words slammed into him. "Wake up, Mr. Hobson."

He opened his eyes. Flinched against a fluorescent glare. 

"Mr. Hobson--Gary. Can you control yourself now? I want to remove your restraints, but I need to know you are calm and in control of your actions."

The voice was male. Nasal. Sure. Too placid for what had been happening when Gary had...

Had what? What had happened? He tried to push himself up, but someone--something--was holding down his wrists. His ankles. His torso. About the only thing he could move was his head. He turned it, blinking out of the glare. White coats to his left and right. White walls, white ceiling. Everything white. Was it winter already? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't blink color back into the world or the stabbing pain from his temples.

A softer voice, a woman, asked, "How much did you give him?"

"It's a minimal dosage, but it should be enough to rouse him and elevate his metabolism," the male voice said, then louder, "I need an answer, Gary. Are you in control?" 

Hospital. This was a hospital. He had to answer. There was no other way to bring back color, to dim the bright light, to move. Why the hell couldn't he move? He was caught, trapped, where--he fought his racing heart and rising panic, the urge to thrash his way out of the restraints that burned his skin. 

"I--yeah." His voice came out in a croak that nearly split the skin at the corners of his mouth. How could he be control when his heart was in a racing panic, his mouth an arid desert? "In control." He remembered something Marissa had told him once, about breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to focus and relax. Breathed in through his nose, and--

Marissa. She always turned up when he was hurt, in the hospital. In trouble. "Where's--"

"Are you sure?" A man's face leaned into his frame of vision. Piercing eyes, snub nose. He couldn't put a name to it, but he knew it. "No urge to attack?"

"I--what--no! No, I--" He breathed in again. And out. He had to be sure. Turned his head and saw a slit of a window high in the wall across the room. Through it, he could see the bright red maple trees he'd first glimpsed through a wrought iron fence, when he'd come here to look for Manny. He had to find Manny. No, he _had_ found Manny, by the door with the bright trees outside, and then--what had happened? Every time he tried to remember, his head hurt worse. "No, no urge to attack." He tried to lick his lips, but he didn't have enough saliva. "Never had one."

"That's not exactly true," a different male voice said, with a chuckle that clattered in the room like spilled marbles. Gary couldn't see who it belonged to. Snub-nose wrote something on a clipboard, straightened up, nodded. The bed rose, pushing Gary to a sitting position. There were more white coats, four in total. Four curious faces, three male and one female. Two additional men in white shirts and pants, the size of football players, of mountains, stood behind them. They'd closed on him just before he started falling. They'd taken Manny away.

"Where did you take hi--" The last word caught on the dryness at the back of his throat and wouldn't come out. He coughed. Remembered. Kryptonite. Baron Zemo. Overdose. Suicide. "What did you do to Manny?"

"It's a question of what you did to them," the woman said. She had wide-set, sweetly blue eyes, and her voice was ice cream smooth, but it drove up his heartbeat, set his feet moving, his ankles rubbing against the restraints. "Don't you remember?" She turned to the larger man, the one with the ridiculous sideburns. "Show him."

Sideburns pushed up the short sleeve of his white shirt, revealing a purple-green bruise. "I was trying to bring Wonder Man back to his room and you attacked me."

"No, I didn't. I mean, I wouldn't do that." He was a lot of things, most of which he couldn't remember at the moment, but he wasn't that stupid, was he? He'd tried to help Manny. Manny, who was supposed to die. 

No, Gary was supposed to save him. Words, images, memories came faster now, jabbing at his brain so fast he couldn't make out what any of them meant: Manny, suicide, LorTech, Kryptonite, superhero, _help_.

Gary balled his fists, straining against the restraints, but he stopped when all four white-coated doctors stared pointedly at his hands. Took another deep breath in through his nose, two, three, out through his mouth, four, five, six. Stretched out his fingers, forced his shoulders back against the bed, where they twitched. "What do you mean, I attacked?"

"You lost control out in the hall," said Snub-nose. White coat. He was a doctor. What was wrong, something was wrong. Gary couldn't control his breathing, couldn't stop his heart, couldn't get words out to tell these doctors that he needed help. "You attacked the orderlies who were asking you to leave." 

"I didn't—" Now his difficulty was as much catching his breath as forcing the words out of his arid mouth. "I didn't attack anyone. I swear. I was just trying to help my friend." He was in trouble. How much was safe to say? He looked to the woman. "If I attacked them, it was because they were hurting Manny. Or I thought they were. And I had to stop them. The paper said Manny was going to die today. I couldn't let that happen."

"What paper?" the woman asked.

"Not today, Gary. Yesterday," Snub-nose said. "It was yesterday you attacked the guards."

"They attacked me! That’s why I have this headache." He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare, trying to remember what came before the fall. Cool fingers pressed against his neck. 

"Elevated heart rate," the female doctor said. She scribbled something on her clipboard. "He's reaching the peak of the explosive phase. He's also at his most suggestible. Shouldn't last more than a minute or two." 

Explosive was right. His heart pounded so hard he was pretty sure it would shatter his ribcage. "I have to get out of here, you have to let me go. I don't go around attacking people. I save them! Where's the paper, damn it? Where's my cat?" 

"Mr. Hobson, listen to me." Snub-nose bent down into his line of vision again. Gary wanted to grab his clipboard and blacken his stupid, beady little eyes. "We believe you have a condition known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder." All four doctors nodded, as if their heads were all worked by the same puppeteer. "It means that you experience periods of violent outbursts, verbally or physically, with no apparent reason. Has this ever happened to you before?"

"No! No, of course not." So why was it happening now? Gary didn't go around thinking about beating people up, but he knew that without the restraints, that's exactly what he would have been trying to do. 

"It may have manifested itself just recently, but I'm sure you've had these impulses before. What's best for you, Gary, is to stay here and let us monitor and take care of you. Let us help you."

"Help?" Yes. He needed help. He coughed again. "Why'm I so damn thirsty?" 

"Hold on, one minute more." Snub nose glanced down at his watch, made another note on the clipboard. There was a logo on his pen, a company name.

"LorTech," Gary said. As much as the words hurt coming out, as much as some tiny, red-hot part of his brain told him to shut up, shut up _now_ , he couldn't stop them. "That's where Manny was going. Or where he was going to end up, but we didn't think it seemed like him to—we didn't--where the hell is Marissa? Where's my paper? I need to know the damn future. Know who needs saving. Manny. I came here to see him and you guys were taking him somewhere. He was going to--you were going to--today it's him, isn't it? Or yesterday. I owed Marissa--Toni, God, I told her I'd call her, I was going to take her out to dinner--" The thoughts that had jabbed at his brain fell out of his mouth, but he lost every thread, couldn't remember what he'd meant or where he'd meant to go with them.

"Deterioration," the woman said. "Three minutes at peak, not too bad. We can work with it."

"Work with what?" Gary rasped.

"Now," Snub-nose said, and one of the other doctors held a bottle of Gatorade with a straw in it close to Gary's mouth, pushed the straw onto his tongue. 

Gary sucked down half the bottle before he took another breath. That breath came easy, down a lubricated, relaxed throat, and he found a thought he could hold onto long enough to ask, "Can I call someone to let them know where I am? Marissa Clark. She's supposed to be here, her number's in my—" He coughed again, and the doctor gave him another drink of the Gatorade. "Where's my wallet?" 

"It's in a safe place," Snub-nose said with an encouraging smile. It was a little fuzzy around the edges. Or maybe that was Gary's vision. 

"And Toni Brigatti, she's a detective. With the police. You should call her. She knows me. They'll be looking for me." Something about the shared look the doctors passed around as he finished off the drink was wrong. He didn't know what it was exactly, though he was pretty sure their hair wasn't supposed to swirl around and get all blurry. It made him dizzy, and he closed his eyes. "Why won't you let me out? I need my paper."

"Take off the restraints," Snub-nose said.

"You sure?" said another voice. "His feet are still twitchy." Funny, Gary couldn't remember telling his feet to move. He couldn't remember wanting to move at all. Ever.

"He's no danger right now," the woman said. She was right. All that energy, the urge to attack, was completely gone. They must have been right. He must really need to be here, with the doctors, who could help. Who gave him cool green liquid to quench his thirst.

Green. If he'd been able to move, he would have sat up straight. The Gatorade was green. That was important, but why?

"We don't want there to be marks when they find him," Snub-nose said.

That sounded--not good. But he couldn't do anything about it, couldn't even open his eyes to see who was taking off the restraints. Finally released, he fell again, back down into darkness and silence.

* * *

Marissa tried to hold onto her belief that they'd get a warning if anything drastic was going to happen to Gary, but she knew the calculus of the paper wasn't quite so straightforward. Every time she tried to follow it to a hopeful conclusion, her thoughts looped back in on themselves. On one hand, the stories appeared according to the timeline of the news cycle, albeit twenty-four hours ahead of the rest of the world. Therefore, they could only know what had happened to Gary if it made for the kind of story the _Sun-Times_ was likely to print, and even then, no more than twenty-four hours before the reporters had the information. On the other hand, in a few extreme cases like Marley's attempt to assassinate the president, the paper had found ways to circumvent that strict cycle. Surely anything too horrible or permanent that might happen to Gary would count as an extreme case. Which meant if there wasn't anything about him in the paper right now, he mustn't be in a life-threatening situation. 

On the other _other_ hand, there was Cat, who'd been on her heels since the paper had showed up. Which meant he—and by extension the paper and whatever power sent it—might be just as lost as she was. As Gary was. "We'll find him," she promised Cat before she left for class, but the thought loops made her voice waver, made her wonder if one of these times, she'd make that promise and not be able to keep it. 

She fidgeted all through class, her head a mess of loops and worries and possibilities, each one worse than the next. She kept one hand in the skirt pocket where she'd hid her cell phone anticipating the vibration of a call, and though she kept her tape recorder running, she didn't absorb one word of the presentations. When Dr. Ogoyu caught her in the hall and asked to talk to her, she assumed that was why.

"Wow, twice in one week. Are you flunking out or something?" Shannon teased. 

"No, but don't wait for me. I have another appointment." Either at the police station, or--well, she wasn't sure. She wanted to touch base with Toni, and she couldn't do it with Shannon hanging on her every word.

"Okay, bye. Bye, Reilly." Reilly's tail hit Marissa's leg a couple times while Shannon's footsteps echoed down the hall.

"Miss Clark, I made some calls about Arden," Dr. Ogoyu said once Shannon left. "I believe it might be in your best interests to look elsewhere."

"What's wrong with the place?" Marissa demanded.

"Nothing in particular." Dr. Ogoyu sounded mildly surprised at her reaction. Marissa told herself to tone it down, but her fingers tightened around Reilly's harness. "I have to say, it's not the kind of placement I imagined you'd choose. They cater to a wealthy clientele. There's a huge turnover for most of their staff, except one core group. That's usually a sign there's some heavy-duty politicking going on, and I don't like to see an undergraduate caught up in that."

Dr. Ogoyu said, "politicking" as if it was a vile, demeaning practice; as if it didn't go on among academics as well. But what if what was going on at Arden was something much, much worse? Something Gary had stumbled upon and gotten caught? He'd gone there over twenty-four hours ago and hadn't come back, and it was past time to figure out why.

"Those kinds of places don't tend to welcome students at any rate," Dr. Ogoyu went on. "Would you like me to talk to a friend of mine at St. Dymphna's? They specialize in treating women, especially those who are victims of abuse. I think you'd be much more comfortable and able to do a great deal more good in a place like that."

"Yes, of course." Marissa shook off her worry for a moment as the offer sank in. "I mean, thank you, Dr. Ogoyu. That would be wonderful. I really do appreciate it." She filed the idea and what it might mean for next semester away to deal with later. Gary trumped school. 

Dr. Ogoyu wasn't three steps down the hall before Marissa dialed Toni. The call went straight to voicemail. "I'm done with class, and I don't have any messages, so I guess you haven't found him," she began, and in the time it took her to say that much, she made up her mind. "I'm going to Arden. It's closer to campus than it is to downtown, and I got a weird vibe from what my advisor had to say about the place. Nothing specific, but it was the last place I know he meant to go, whether he really ended up there or not. And I know you'd probably tell me not to do it--I know that's what Gary would say--but it is Gary. And the paper. So I have to. Maybe it's a good thing you didn't pick up. I'll call again when I'm done there."

Next she called a cab. The driver pulled up just as she and Reilly exited the building. "We meet again, pretty lady," he said when he opened the door for her. "Remember me? Lewis?" 

"Of course I do." Lewis had been her driver a handful of times before. He said he liked the college beat, and he was friendly without being pushy. 

"So, you headed home, or to that fine establishment of yours?"

"Neither. I want to go to the Arden Treatment Center in Forest Glen. I think it's fairly close, but I can get you the address if you need it."

He laughed. "No need at all. Got a map of the tri-state area in my noggin. But why would you want to visit the loony bin?"

"It's not a loony bin," Marissa said as they pulled into traffic. "It's a place where people go to get better, like any other hospital."

"Sorry. You just don't seem like you need that kind of help."

"I'm actually looking for—that is, I'm visiting a friend. Excuse me, I need to make a call."

"You go right ahead."

She dialed the bar. No Gary, but the staff had all reported for their evening shifts. "Got the fort, holding it down," AJ assured her. Toni's number was still going to voicemail. She tried to convince herself Toni was on some other call, one that would lead to finding Gary, and not waiting to tell her any bad news in person. Toni was too direct for that. Nothing was wrong. It would all be okay, they'd find him and fix whatever problem he'd run into. Unless he'd run into it too late, and—the loop started up again, but she pushed it back. They would find him. They would fix it. There wasn't any other future she'd accept.

"Here we are," Lewis finally said. "Hold on, I'll get the door. You need any help?"

"If you can point me toward the entrance, my dog can do the rest." 

"Sure, sure, you just go straight ahead here, a little to the left. We got sliding glass doors. This place looks more like a hotel than a loo--than a hospital. You need a ride back?"

"I'm not sure. Can you wait? I'll pay for it." She held out the fare and twenty dollars extra. 

Lewis caught her hand along with the money. His grip was light, but sure. "You've never been here before?" When she shook her head, he said, "I'll walk you in."

"Reilly's trained to help me in new situations."

"Well, then, you can consider me Reilly's back up. Have to say, I've never been in a fancy joint like this. It'll be my pleasure."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

They went through a set of sliding doors into what felt like a big space. She heard running water and the hum and bubble of a fish tank. It smelled less like Dr. Chatham's office than she had expected; there was the lush, living smell of plants, and sound bounced off smooth surfaces like the slickly polished floor. Reilly's claws clicked along with her shoes as they made their way inside.

Lewis whistled. "Swanky joint, for a bunch of nutjobs. Not that your friend is a nutjob."

"Of course he isn't."

"Good afternoon," said a woman's voice just ahead of her and to the left. "Welcome to Arden. How may I help you?"

"My name's Marissa Clark. I called earlier looking for Gary Hobson." Marissa wished she had thought to bring a photo with her. "He's a friend of mine, and I believe he was here yesterday."

"As I told you on the phone, I don't know who that is, but I'll check again," the receptionist said, just a little too blithely. She typed something on a keyboard. "Sorry, it's like I said before. We don't have that name in our visitors' log."

"He was here." He had to have been, or they'd be back at square one trying to find him. "He was looking for someone who's a patient, Emmanuel Cabrerra, and he might have seemed a little overly insistent. He was probably dressed casually. His voice has kind of a drawl to it. Face like apple pie." Lewis let out a choked-off laugh. "He drives a Jeep, and he would have parked it right out front, where the cab is now. I just want to talk to anyone who saw him or spoke to him. Please."

Was there a hesitation? What did it mean? The receptionist must have seen Gary. She'd be the first person he would have talked to. If nothing had gone wrong, why wouldn't she say so? "I think I know who you mean, but I'm not sure what happened. A Jeep was out there for a while, and then we got a lockdown order, so maybe he—but the Jeep's not there now, is it?"

"Maybe he what?"

"Just a moment." Marissa heard her pick up the phone, but she couldn't make out what she mumbled into it because Lewis was at her elbow, clearing his throat.

"Look, are you sure about this place?"

"No," she said honestly.

"Of course, sir, if you say so," the receptionist's voice was louder, with an edge of surprise. "Miss? Dr. Feldman, who's been working with Mr. Cabrerra, is free to talk to you. I can take you in, but you'll have to leave your dog."

"He's a service animal." Reilly was her anchor, and Marissa had no desire to go into this place unmoored.

"I understand, but we have some patients who are skittish about animals, especially large dogs."

"Reilly won't bother them." Marissa was fully prepared to go into her ADA rant, but there was a nudge at her elbow. 

"How 'bout I take your pooch for a walk?" Lewis offered. "I wouldn't mind a little stroll while you talk to the doc."

Between the trip up to campus and class, Reilly had been working for a few hours straight. He could probably use a break, and maybe this wasn't the battle Marissa needed to fight. "Are you sure?"

"What else am I gonna do? Come on, Reilly."

As she handed over the harness, she lowered her voice and leaned in close. "If anything weird happens, call the police, ask for Detective Brigatti."

"What's going to happen?" Lewis whispered back.

"Nothing, I hope." 

The receptionist cleared her throat and touched Marissa's elbow. "This way, Miss. Do you want me to steer you?"

"I'll follow you." Marissa took her cane out of her bag and unfolded it. Using it wasn't nearly as grounding as walking with Reilly would have been, but if giving him up got her any information about Gary, it would be worth it. They went through three sets of doors and down a pair of twisting hallways. She tried to pay attention, to memorize the route, but she was too busy listening for familiar voices--one in particular—to make the kind of map in her head she would have needed to get back to the lobby.

The receptionist stopped and knocked on a door, then opened it. "This is Dr. Feldman. There's a chair just in front of you. I'll be back at my desk, but I can lead you back out when you're done."

"Thank you, Roxanne." Dr. Feldman's voice was fairly deep, but there was a contained, nasal quality to it. 

Once she was seated, Marissa introduced herself and launched into her spiel about Gary again, more firmly than before. "I know he was here, and no one's seen him since. I just want to know who he talked to and where he went afterward."

"We can't release information about our patients to anyone but family. And you certainly don't look like Mr. Hobson's family." 

A flare of outrage at that last bit almost distracted her from the first thing he'd said. 

Almost. 

"Gary didn't come here as a patient. If I wanted to know about a patient, I'd be asking to see Manny Cabrerra, just like Gary did."

A silent space; Feldman must have realized his mistake. "Miss Clark, you must know I can't tell you anything at all regarding Mr. Cabrerra without his family's permission."

He was not going to get away from that slip-up so easily. Or at all. She tried to channel Dr. Ogoyu's precision and authority. "I am a student in psychology at Northwestern. I know something about how facilities like yours run and what the regulations are. Gary was here as a visitor, so you should be able to tell me anything you told him and if he said where he meant to go afterward. And if for some bizarre reason you did see him as a patient--" He didn't correct her. Why didn't he correct her? She drew her hands together in her lap and sat up straighter, channeling the determination she'd had to use more than once with nurses and doctors who cared for Gary after his mishaps. "I am his designated representative for medical matters. I have power of attorney if anything happens to him. If for some reason he is here in that capacity now, I want to know why and I demand to see him."

"I apologize. Of course he isn't a patient." 

That was too late for Marissa's peace of mind. Gary had come here for Manny and nothing more. The man basically put his hands over his ears and chanted la la la whenever she mentioned anything as simple as a counseling session. Or had he tried to get close to Manny by lying about his reason for being there? _That_ would be like him. 

"It was merely a slip of the tongue," Dr. Feldman added, his voice dripping with condescension. "Most of the people I deal with on a daily basis are patients. I'm sure you understand."

"What I understand is that patients have rights, if that's what Gary's become." She took out her wallet and handed him the card that identified her as Gary's emergency contact. "I want to see your admission and visitor logs."

Feldman's voice twisted. "I'm sure there are many things you'd like to see."

"Excuse me?" This man was capable of a lot more than politicking. Dr. Ogoyu didn't know the half of it.

"Forgive me, that was rude. Here's your card." He tapped it on the desk, and she snatched it back. "You must know, as a student of psychology, that you can't come in here making unprofessional accusations and demands and expect acquiescence."

"And you're not going to derail me by talking about professionalism when something's happened to my friend and you were the last person I know of to speak to him."

There was a moment of cold silence; she felt as though the walls were closing in on her when he said, "I'm not derailing, Miss Clark. Mr. Hobson left as soon as I told him what I'm telling you: we can't let just anyone in to see our patients. He was much more understanding of our procedures than you seem to be. "

Gary was the last person who'd understand, especially if he'd been convinced Manny was here and needed his help. 

She heard Dr. Feldman push a button, and the door behind her opened almost immediately. There was the kind of silence that meant people were exchanging nonverbal information over her head, then Feldman said, "Nurse Duncan will see you out."

This wasn't right. There was far more going on here than Feldman was letting on, and Gary--Gary was still missing. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what happened to my friend."

"Believe me, if I could tell you, I would. How are you getting home?"

"There's a taxi waiting for me. But Dr. Feldman--"

"It would be a waste of money to let the meter run any further. Nurse?"

A big hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her upright. It was the kind of hand that was used to moving people where he wanted them to go. She snapped her cane open, but he didn't let go as he forced her out to the hall. "I can manage," she said. "I'll follow you."

"We want to make sure you reach your cab safely." He didn't let go; at this point, he was half-dragging her and Marissa was fighting back panic. She didn't remember the way she'd come well enough to be sure he was taking her the right way. But if anything was going to happen to her, the paper would tell Gary and he'd--

No, the paper would tell Toni. Because Gary couldn't do what the paper needed. Something had happened to him, and it had happened here.

There was a sound of sliding doors swooshing open; she heard the lobby fountain and felt a rush of cooler air, tinged with outside smells, but still Duncan didn't let go. He leaned in close, and she caught a whiff of hand sanitizer. "Look, lady, you seem harmless, so I'm telling you, you don't want to come back here. Got it?"

"Why not? Is Feldman--"

"Your taxi's right outside the door there." He released her with a push into the lobby, and the doors slid closed.

"Wait." She swung her cane in an arc, hoping the doors would open again, but they didn't.

"The entrance is in front of you, a little to your left. Your dog's outside. Bye!" the receptionist chirped. It was a moment before Marissa could move, but she couldn't think of a word to say that would get her what she wanted.

"Did you get to see your—no, I guess you didn't," Lewis said when she walked outside and followed Reilly's friendly bark to the cab. "Never seen you look so pissed off. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I hate that word. And I _am_ pissed." Reilly settled in on the floor of the backseat, and his big head pushed against her knee, grounding her in her anger and determination and downright fear. Something was going on in that building, something had happened to Gary, and much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't fight it alone. "Take me to the Northside police station."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She dialed Toni's number as the cab started moving. The phone rang once and went to voicemail again. 

"Gonna take a shortcut," Lewis said, "because you're my favorite cust—what the hell?" He hit the brakes and Marissa slid forward, knocking her chin against the headrest of the front seat. Reilly yelped and pushed his way between Marissa and the seat, sniffing worriedly at her face.

"I'm okay, boy," she assured him, though she wasn't one hundred percent sure. "What happened?" 

"He jumped out of the tree! Hold on." Lewis got out of the cab. Marissa fumbled with the window control and got it to roll down in time to hear him say, "Geez, this is more action than Navy Pier on a Saturday night. You okay, buddy?" 

"Of course I am," said a familiar voice. "Wonder Man is indestructible."

"Manny?" Marissa called out the window.

"Batgirl!"

"Get in here," she said. The door opened and Manny slid in.

"Gotta escape the minions," Manny said. He was breathing hard, talking fast. "They're trying to take me to Baron Zemo again, but I won't go! Hey, is this Ace the Bat Hound?"

"Reilly." She snapped her fingers and Reilly squeezed himself onto the floor on her side.

"I don't know about this." Lewis was still hovering outside the door. "This guy came from inside the grounds. There's probably—oh, boy, yeah, here come the white coats."

"Go." Marissa reached across Manny and pulled the door shut. Whatever he was running from, whatever his comic book code meant, he was in trouble, and she wasn't giving him back to Feldman.

"You sure?" Lewis asked as he got in and restarted the cab.

No, she wasn't sure. She was leaving Gary behind. But he would want her to take care of Manny. That was why he'd come in the first place. "He's a friend. We need to help him. Go."

"You got it." The cab shot forward.

"Manny, you're okay?" she asked. He was still panting, and there was a chemical tinge in the odor of his sweat—if sweat was what she smelled. His leg twitched frantically, setting the whole back seat jittering. "Did you see Gary back there?"

"Sure, yeah, yeah, I'm good. You saved the day, Batgirl. But I don't know about Batman. I mean Bruce. No, wait, I mean Clark. He said he doesn't have Bruce Wayne's money. So he's Superman. They don't know it, but they gave him Kryptonite anyway. Controlling his superpowers."

"Is he in the hospital?" Marissa grabbed at Manny's arm as they took a fast right turn, and got a handful of t-shirt. "Did you see him?"

"Yup. Yup. We need to break him out. Good thing they let me put on my lucky shirt before they tried to take me to Zemo's lab. Need my powers to save Clark. Lex Luthor's going to shoot him up."

Even though she didn't understand them all, every word out of his mouth scared her more. "You're right. We're going to save him. But we need help." 

"Still want to go to the cop shop?" Lewis asked. 

"Yes. Take your shortcut." 

Manny let out a low whistle. "We're going to see Commissioner Gordon?" 

Marissa dialed Toni's number, praying that for once it would go through. "Something like that."

* * *

Somewhere in the endless fall, he tried to stop. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. If he was never going to land, he needed to fight his way back up to light, to sound, to consciousness. He was Superman, after all. Or maybe the other guy. 

Hard as he fought, he couldn't do it. He reached out for a handhold, a foothold, anything to slow the descent. Words fell with him, most lost in the dark as soon as he became aware of them, jumbling with his own disconnected thoughts, then slipping away before he could catch them.

"…not our problem right now. We'll take…" 

She'd been sleeping right next to him, where was--

"…have to make it believable."

He had to help someone.

"…care of him after the dust settles with this one."

"…just how suggestible it makes a subject…"

"…somebody sniffing around..."

Why hadn't he been able to help--

"…his pulse spike last time?"

\--who? He couldn't find--

"Gary? Are you awake?"

Name. His name. A way through the dark. 

"You need to wake up and talk to us." 

He winced against the voice, wished the black would swallow it instead of every memory he had of who he was, where he was, why he was here.

Help. He had to help, had to get--

A tiny jab on his arm, a bee sting, stopped the fall. He caught his breath—he could breathe—and forced his eyes open. A slant of light on white walls. Same walls. Different light.

Different restraints, hands on his upper arms, pushing him back. But he could fight them. He'd wanted to fight them. Now that he wasn't falling, he could—no. He shouldn't fight without a reason.

"Relax, Gary," a woman said. "You've had that panic reaction every time you've woken up. You with us? Yes? Good."

Deep breaths. Those were important. He took a few, and the hands released him. He had to keep breathing, or they'd grab him again. 

Him. Gary. Breathed. In and out. Just like she'd told him to. Not the woman taking notes. Marissa.

Marissa, he knew Marissa. And Toni. Words he knew, words he needed, came to him in a rush: _Toni Marissa Cat paper Manny help Marissa paper Toni help._ They made up a world he couldn't quite get to, couldn't quite grasp. Or that couldn't get to him, as long as he was in this room with these people. 

They kept pushing him into the dark and pulling him out. They'd been there before. How many times? Once, twice, he wasn't sure. It didn't matter, because the people who were supposed to be there never were. The people who helped him. The people he helped. They'd all left him to fall.

He peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth, fought fought fought to get his voice above a whispered croak. "Where are--why--what's going on?" 

"Just relax, Gary." He looked to one side, where the woman was writing on her clipboard. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail. "Tell us how you're feeling."

His head was about to split apart and he ached to move, but his limbs felt like they were filled with concrete. But none of that mattered. He'd come here to help, and he still had to do that. "Where's Manny? Paper said he was going to die."

Dr. Snub-nose's voice took on a sharp note, like alarm bells. His face swam into view. "What paper?"

"Marissa knows. I want to see her. Or Toni. Let me--" His words disintegrated into a coughing fit. Someone put a straw in his mouth and he took a drink. Not Kryptonite. Not water, either. Slightly bitter, but cool and somehow comforting. 

The woman's eyes, clear September sky blue, came into view. "Why do you want to see them?"

'They're the only ones who understand." 

"Understand what, Gary?"

Now that he had a voice that worked, he couldn't stop. When he looked into her eyes, open and interested, he didn't want to. "About the paper. And Manny. Manny was going to kill himself. Or they were going to make it look like he did. Here—no—not here—they were going to take him."

A hand on his shoulder. Gary swiveled his head. Snub-nose. "Focus. What's this paper you keep talking about?"

"The _Sun-Times_. Tomorrow's _Sun-Times_. Or today's. Yesterday's." Was he supposed to say that? He hadn't meant to.

"That's good, Gary," Blue-eyes said. He looked back at her. It was like finding his footing on ice. "We can help you, but you have to tell us everything."

"I need to tell Toni. Marissa. Why aren't they here?"

She gave him a kind smile. "They know you're sick. Remember how you attacked the orderlies? We've told your friends about your condition. They want you to stay here so you can get better."

That couldn't be true. Could it? "They wouldn't do that. They'd be here."

"They put you in our hands. You can trust us." She held the straw up to his lips and he took a long drink. "Now tell us about the paper."

If this was what his friends wanted, maybe it was okay. "It tells me who I have to save. Every day." Gary looked away from her blue, blue eyes for a moment, and the room blurred. Lightheaded—that wasn't good. But the headache retreated a little. Relief. That was what the feeling was. Relief, because telling Blue-eyes about the paper was the right thing to do. It must have been, if it felt so good. "So the other day—yesterday?" Blue-eyes nodded. "It told me I had to help Manny. He was going to kill himself. Or someone was going to kill him. But I saw him, I stopped him, didn't I? Cat hasn't been here so I think that means Manny's okay. But there'll be other people who need help by now. How many editions have I missed?"

"So he has superhero delusions, too? What are the odds?" Snub-nose muttered. 

Superhero. Manny. 

The woman waved a hand, shushing Snub-nose. She held the straw up to Gary's mouth and he drained the cup dry. "It sounds like you help a lot of people, Gary."

"That's why I'm here." Black t-shirt. Suicide. Wonder Man. "Where's Manny Cabrerra?" 

"He's just a few doors down. He's doing really well," Blue-eyes said. "But tell me more about the other people. Tell me about the people you help." She looked over at Snub-nose, who was tapping his pen against his clipboard, and shook her head. He stopped. She sat down on the bed next to Gary, and a look of pure compassion came over her face. In that moment, Gary knew he could tell her anything. "Tell me about the people you couldn't help."

He had to help Manny. But first he had to get rid of the headache, and talking to Blue-eyes seemed to help. So he told her about the people who came to mind: Amanda Bailey, Jim Matthews, Lance Foster. Pedro Mendoza, Nikki Kurasek, Allie Chapman. Ricky Brown, Marcus--JoJo. Frank Scanlon.

Snub-nose wrote everything on his clipboard. The scratching of his pen made Gary thirsty, but Blue-eyes didn't offer him more to drink. It was more important to answer her questions.

"Is that all?" she asked when Gary finally stopped, his mouth and his supply of words gone dry. "Remember, Gary, you have to tell us everything."

"Can I have something to drink, please?"

"Of course. But first, I think there's something you're holding back. Something you think you don't want to tell me, but you have to." She leaned in close, resting her hand on his arm. "What's your greatest regret, Gary? Your greatest failure? You have to tell us, so you can let it go."

"I—I don't—" He was about to say he didn't have another regret, but then he looked away from her, over and up at the window. The bright red maples blazed in the fall sun. Blazed. Fire.

"Gary?"

He forced himself to look back at her, to trust the compassion and understanding written in those blue, blue eyes. Took a deep breath. "There was a fire. I tried to save him. He would have died on the roof if I hadn't come, but then he died anyway. I couldn't hold on and he fell."

She tightened her hand around his arm, steadying him. "Who?"

It was like something cracked inside him, and the name fell out. "Jeremiah Mason." After that, there was no holding back the whole story: the fire, the ladder, the fall. The worst day of his life, a spill of words in a white hospital room.

She didn't look away. Her eyes didn't fill with disappointment or disgust or hate. She just nodded. "Thank you, Gary. You did the right thing, telling us. Don't you feel better?"

He did. He was ready now, ready to save Manny. The headache was nearly gone. He sat up straight. "Yeah. I just have to—" A fresh fit of coughing overtook him. "Could I please have a drink now?"

"Here you go." This time the bottle was Gatorade, with its lingering sweetness that soothed his parched mouth. Blue-eyes gave it to him, then went over to the corner with Snub-nose. Feldman. His name was Dr. Feldman. Gary needed to know the woman's name, too. He'd ask her once his mouth wasn't so dry. As he lifted the bottle to take another drink, it caught the sunlight and flashed green—

Green. Kryptonite. Manny had called him Superman. Gary swished some of the liquid around his mouth, then poured the next drink straight down his aching throat. How could he be Superman when he'd let Jeremiah die? Poor Manny, lost in his fantasy. But Gary would help him. Maybe he already had. Blue-eyes had said Manny was okay, so he must be alive. He tilted his head back, rested it against the wall. That felt good. Funny, he could make out the doctors' conversation better with his eyes closed. 

"He's just as delusional as the other one," Feldman was saying. "I have no idea how he functions if this is what he believes."

"The point is, he does believe it. We can check into a few of the stories, but I think the last one is going to be the best for what we need. If we need it at all."

What they needed? What did she mean? Was this some new treatment for whatever was wrong with him? Gary tried to ask, but he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. The headache was gone, but the dark was coming back.

"He knows about LorTech and Cabrerra," Feldman said. "Sooner or later, we're going to need it."

Manny. He had to help Manny, but he couldn't hold on. The dark rose up to meet him as he fell. 

Just like Jeremiah.

* * *

There had to be a pattern. Toni could sense it waiting, but it wouldn't come clear. She couldn't find any connections between LorTech and the staff at Arden. After a cursory glance at the records to which she had access, Manny Cabrerra seemed to be the only tie.

There wasn't any sign of Hobson, either. A few hours wasn't necessarily a long time in a case like this, but there hadn't been any pings on him or his Jeep, not even after she sent a unit out to check the parking lots at Arden and LorTech. Even more telling, there was no sign of activity on his credit cards in the past few days. Always a bad sign when someone went missing.

It all came back to Arden, though. She went through the information on the place more carefully, making a timeline of reports they'd filed with the police. There'd been a handful of on-site deaths over the past five years, heart attacks and strokes among elderly patients. Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary for a hospital. Nothing recorded as a suicide, as Manny's death would have been. Then again, according to Marissa he would have left the facility and been found at LorTech. How many other patients had died elsewhere while they were supposed to be at Arden?

Finding out would take time and manpower, neither of which she had. If CPD would move faster in its long, slow slog to digitize its records, a search through suicides for mentions of Arden might take just a few minutes. Cross-checking by hand would take days. She didn't have days, at least as far as she knew. Gary's newspaper was being just as uncooperative and uncommunicative as the man himself. 

The newspaper. She swiveled to her computer. The _Sun-Times_ had some of their stories online now. She'd used their archives on a handful of cases since she'd come to Chicago. She went to the site and typed in her search terms: "suicide," "Arden," and for good measure, "LorTech." It wasn't as thorough as a comb through police records would be, but it might give her a place to start.

The search icon twirled around mesmerizingly. "Come on…" she muttered, though it was ridiculous to be impatient with something that could do this part of her job so quickly.

Winslow walked by and knocked her shoulder. "You gonna get that?"

"What?" She blinked up at him, then in the direction he pointed. Over on the corner of her desk, her phone was vibrating; the message screen showed a handful of missed calls. "Damn. Brigatti."

"Toni? Oh, thank God." Marissa's voice was tight, nearly frantic. "I've been trying—I mean, I guess it doesn't matter, because we're almost there, but I was starting to think something had happened to you, too."

"Yeah, sorry, I was on a long call and then I had the ringer off, so—wait, did you say, 'we'? You found Gary?"

"Not exactly, no. But I went to Arden and I'm positive he's there. Manny says he is."

No part of that sounded good. "What the hell did you do?"

"I'm not sure anymore," Marissa admitted. "We're headed your way, we're—how far?" There was a muffled exchange and then she said, "We're a couple miles from the station. Please tell me you're there."

"I am, but Marissa, you can't go investigating on your own."

"I can if it's Gary," she said firmly. She sounded exactly like Hobson would have, which made a stupid kind of sense, because going to Arden alone was the kind of stupid thing Hobson would have done. Hell, it was exactly what Hobson had done. "I'll explain everything as soon as we get there." Her voice lowered a notch. "Can you check the paper, make sure there's nothing about Gary? I'm worried I might have changed things."

"You _might have_ disappeared, just like Hobson," Toni pointed out, and then realized Winslow was watching her from his desk, taking in every word. "But yeah, I'll check. Give me a minute."

"We'll be right there."

"Marissa—" But she was already gone. Toni grabbed her coat, which she'd draped over the back of her chair. 

"Got a lead on Hobson? Where you going?" Winslow asked. 

"The bathroom." 

"Your boyfriend's in the ladies' room? Why do you need your coat? Gonna make a break for it out the window?"

"Get back to work," Toni snapped. She didn't have time to come up with an explanation. 

There weren't any new stories in the paper, just the same slate of city politics and human interest that had replaced the problems she and Marissa had been able to fix. Whatever Marissa had done at Arden, it hadn't triggered anything that was going to help them find Gary. 

Back at her desk, she ignored Winslow's questions about the temperature in the bathroom and checked her computer. Her search of the _Sun-Times_ archive had pulled up a handful of stories. Two caught her attention: a woman who'd jumped from the Courtland Street Bridge seven months ago, and a man who'd shot himself in his home in August. Both had checked themselves out of Arden against medical advice. 

On the surface, neither story would have pinged anybody's foul play meter: Carol Anderson had left a note taking blame for a hit-and-run that had killed an elderly couple a decade ago, and Richard Liddell had used the same gun that had discharged when his teenage son and a friend had messed with it. The kid was permanently paralyzed thanks to the bullet lodged in his spine; Liddell's wife had blamed Richard and divorced him. Toni was surprised Gary hadn't intervened in either case, until she realized both bodies hadn't been found for several days. 

The circumstances of both deaths, while tragic, also had their own kind of logic. The problem was, Manny's would have, too. An overdose by a guy who'd falsified drug tests and might have hurt people in the process, on the grounds of the company where he'd done it--that was exactly what a lot of people would have expected. The only difference was that he would have been found in time to make it into Gary's paper. But if the deaths were staged, somehow—and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would take to do that—she kept coming back to the why of it all. If someone at LorTech had wanted Manny out of the way for good, she could see this as a solution, but what about Anderson and Liddell? 

And again, how would a theory like that help her find Gary? 

She was on the phone with Records, asking for files on Kathy Anderson's hit-and-run and the shooting of Liddell's son, when the desk sergeant shouted, "Brigatti! It's for you." Marissa, her dog, Manny Cabrerra, and a guy Toni'd never seen before made their way back to her desk when she waved them over. 

"This is Lewis. He's the cab driver who took me out to Arden." Marissa was practically vibrating with…worry, Toni decided. Or panic or fear. Whatever it was, it was probably justified. "He found Manny."

"More like he found me," Lewis said. "Jumped out of a tree and over the fence." He whistled and twirled a finger by his temple. "There were guys in white coats chasing him. Okay, white scrubs, but still."

"I escaped the minions!" Cabrerra thrust his arms in the air. "They were taking me to Baron Zemo."

"You broke out of a psychiatric facility?" Toni asked. She turned to Marissa. "You helped him?"

Cabrerra leaned in; there was an acidic tinge to the smell of his sweat, something different than standard b.o. "Their lair is a desert. They only have Kryptonite to drink."

"I think he means some kind of drug," Marissa said. 

"Kryptonite?" Winslow crowded into the aisle with the rest of them. "Isn't that Superman's downfall?" 

Manny nodded. "That's why it didn't work on me." He put a finger in his mouth and mimicked gagging.

Winslow turned an incredulous look on Toni. "These are your sources? Who is this guy, Captain America?"

Lewis snorted. "He thinks he can fly, whatever super hero that is."

"Wonder Man!" Manny said proudly, pointing to the red W on his t-shirt.

"West Coast Avengers." Winslow nodded. "Cool."

Of course he was a closet comic book nerd. Toni should have known. She held up a hand, hoping to forestall another one of Cabrerra's rants. "Here's what's going to happen." She pointed to the chair next to Winslow's desk. "Manny, you sit there. Tell my friend Winslow what they were doing to you." 

"And to Superman?" he asked.

"That's Gary," said Marissa. "Manny saw him there."

"Then yes, tell Winslow all about Superman. Translate," she said when Winslow shot her a questioning look. 

"You." Toni pointed at Lewis, then at Paul, who was standing in his office doorway. "Tell him what happened. Every detail you can remember."

"Toni, what the hell?" Paul asked.

"Can you just take his statement? I'll figure out what it means." 

"His statement about what?"

"You're wasting time!" Marissa snapped, and everyone turned to stare at her. "Please, we have to find Gary. Toni, I know he's back at Arden. Manny saw him, and the doctor I talked to was—" She shook her head impatiently. "I know he wasn't telling me the truth. He slipped up and called Gary a patient, and then he practically threw me out the door."

Toni clenched her jaw until her teeth ached. Kathy Anderson and Richard Liddell had been patients; so had Cabrerra. Two of those three were dead, and the third would have been. "Mr. Cabrerra, you saw Gary Hobson at Arden? You're sure?"

He nodded. "Yesterday, the first time they tried to take me to Baron Zemo's lab. He stopped them, but they took him out." He waved his fists in the air. "Boom! Zow! Down goes Kent!"

Winslow's mouth hung open; Paul looked like he wanted to throw a few punches himself. But it was Marissa Toni looked to, blinking as she took in what Cabrerra had said. "They hurt Gary? Toni, we have to go back right now."

"You're going to need a warrant," Winslow said.

"You'll need proof to get one," Paul pointed out. "Better proof than—" He gestured at Manny. "—that."

"Okay, just stop. Everyone stop." Toni brushed Marissa's hand, letting her know whose side she was on. "Paul, Winslow. If this wasn't Hobson--"

"You mean your boyfriend?" Winslow asked with a smirk.

"You mean the guy who throws this department into an uproar on a regular basis?" Paul asked.

"She means the man who's saved all your lives and helped solve your cases," Marissa said.

Manny nodded. "Superman."

"Enough." Toni cut them off with a slice of her hand. "Say it's a random civilian." 

"Clark Kent!" Manny chimed in. "Or maybe Bruce Wayne. No, wait, he doesn't have the money. Bruce Banner?" 

"Say it's someone who's been missing almost twenty-four hours," Toni pressed on, "someone who's missed important things he shouldn't have and hasn't checked in at the business he owns. Hasn't contacted his friends. Hasn't used his credit cards or bank cards. Is a witness to a drug bust. We know he went to this place—which, by the way, has a couple suspicious-looking suicides associated with it in the past year—and they're throwing up roadblocks when we ask about our missing person. What would you say?" Paul and Winslow stared her down, but she stared right back. "Tell me you aren't hearing alarms."

Winslow broke eye contact first, gave a little shrug. "I'd say it smells," Paul admitted. 

Toni let out a breath. "So can we treat this like any other case and investigate?"

"This is not any other case," Marissa insisted. "This is Gary Hobson. And I'm telling you he needs help."

Toni picked up her coat. "Talk to the driver, then take a look at these stories," she told Paul, pointing to her computer. She couldn't tell him about Cabrerra's averted suicide, but maybe this would be enough to convince him. Or at least hold his attention. "Read the note I put in Cabrerra's file about the conversation I had with his son."

"You talked to Drew?" Cabrerra asked.

Toni shot him a brief nod. "I want to know what you think when you add up all these pieces," she told Paul. "I'll call you from the car."

"Hold on." Her partner shot a genuinely distressed look between Toni and Cabrerra. "You can't leave me here with this—"

"Winslow!"

"Witness. That's all I was going to say."

The hell it was. But she didn't have time to argue that point. "Take his statement, then get him to a doctor. I want to know what's in his system. Come on, Marissa. We're going to head straight down this aisle for the back stairs." Toni scooped up her phone and keys. She wanted to get out of there before anyone asked why she was taking a civilian with her.

"What's your plan?" Paul asked, bemused.

"I'm going to make someone talk to us," she said, maneuvering her way past Marissa's dog.

"We're going to bring him home," Marissa added quietly. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

"Damn straight we are," Toni said.

* * *

On the drive back up to Arden, which was by far the fastest of the day, Marissa told Toni everything that seemed important, from Dr. Ogoyu's comments about staff turnover right up to the moment Manny jumped the fence and ended up in the cab. "I didn't want to turn him back over to that Dr. Feldman," she finished, "not after what he said about them taking him away, and the drugs, and Gary being there. I was tempted to go back and find Gary myself, but I didn't think I'd get very far."

"No, you wouldn't have." Toni let out a long, tense breath. "Look, I get why you went there on your own. But it may not have been the best idea. You're lucky whatever happened to Hobson didn't happen to you."

"I tried to call you."

"You should have waited until you got through. If something had happened to you, I'm pretty sure Hobson wouldn't forgive either one of us. Or himself."

"Nothing happened to me, and if I hadn't gone, we wouldn't have Manny right now, or confirmation that Gary's there." Reilly whined from the backseat, probably at the distress she couldn't keep out of her voice. She wasn't the cop in this situation, and it wasn't her job to be one. "It's obvious something did happen to him. Can we focus on that?"

"Yeah. Okay—clear out of the lane, idiot," Toni snapped, and the car swerved to the right, then back. Maybe her veneer was as thin as Marissa's felt. "I just hope whatever's happened to him isn't permanent. That story you told me about, the one about Cabrerra's suicide? It might not have been the only time something like that went down with one of Arden's patients. There are a couple cases that line up with what was supposed to happen to him. Patients who supposedly checked out against their doctors' wishes. The places and the ways they killed themselves were associated with events in their lives that had left them with a lot of guilt."

Marissa swallowed against a rising lump of fear. "You think someone made their deaths look like suicides?"

"I don't know exactly what I think just yet." The car accelerated. "I didn't have time to get the full story on either of them, and it may be too late at this point to ever know for certain. But it sure sounds like what was supposed to happen to Cabrerra, doesn't it?"

"They couldn't get away with that with Gary." They'd drugged Manny, she was sure of it, though she had no idea with what. Maybe they could do the same thing to Gary, but surely to make a suicide believable—to make _his_ suicide believable—would take a lot more than that. "No one who knows him would fall for that."

"The thing is," Toni said, a little hesitantly, "no one would ever believe what we could tell them about him and his newspaper, either. So yeah, except for you and me and the handful of others who know, I'm afraid it could look entirely possible. Either way, he'd still be dead."

"He's not yet. He can't be. The paper would tell us." 

"You better be right about that. Hold on, I have to make a call." 

Toni called Detective Armstrong and ran down the details of her investigation, then had him read what Lewis had told him about Manny's escape. Marissa dug her fingernails into the armrest and tried everything she could think of—mostly prayer—to get her brain to stop its tangled looping and figure out some concrete way to get to Gary, to make the paper show them what they needed to do. Reilly pushed his nose between the seats, nudging her arm to let her know he was there. 

"Gotta go. We're here," Toni said. The car slowed abruptly, took another corner, then stopped. "The place looks respectable enough. Yeah, I know. I'll get back to you."

"I don't think respectable is the word I'd use," Marissa muttered. "More like dubious. Dangerous. Unethical."

Toni's phone clicked shut. "I get it. I do. But we might find out more if we're subtle."

"If we play dumb?" Marissa sighed some of the sharp edge out of her voice. "Maybe I shouldn't go in. They did throw me out."

"I didn't drive you all the way out here to leave you in the car. I need someone who knows more about how these places operate—and let's face it, about Gary—than I do. I'm just saying it'll work better if we play it cool."

Marissa drew in another breath, let it out. "I can do cool." She'd do whatever it took to find Gary, including leaving Reilly in the car, even though he whined when she cracked her window open and told him to stay. "Even my dog knows this place is shady," she told Toni. 

"I'm not sure what I was expecting," Toni said in an undertone when they walked into the building, "but it wasn't marble floors and a waterfall."

A detective's identification worked even better than Marissa had expected; in less than a minute Dr. Feldman came out to meet them, joined by Dr. Barnstable, the center's director. They lead the way to chairs off to the side of the waterfall. Next to Marissa, Toni radiated stiff professionalism. "I have a warrant in progress for your records for several patients," she said, her voice threaded with steel that Marissa would never have been able to manage at this point. "But I would be happy to forego that search if you can help us find Gary Hobson." 

"I understand," Dr. Barnstable said, smooth as honey. He was hiding something behind that façade, and even what he said next didn't reveal his whole hand. "I'm afraid Dr. Feldman was not completely honest with you earlier, Ms. Clark, but there is a good reason for that. Mr. Hobson is indeed here as a patient."

Marissa jumped to her feet. "We have to see him."

"Not just yet," Barnstable said, right in front of her. He patted her shoulder, as if she were a child. "Please sit down, and I'll explain."

She wanted to protest. But Toni had said to play it cool. Marissa sat, but on the very edge of her seat. "What happened to Gary?"

"He experienced an unexpectedly violent incident yesterday," Feldman said. "We were forced to sedate him."

"Sedate—" Toni started, biting into the word like a curse, like a steel cable snapping, but Barnstable spoke over her.

"I promise you, we did not take that action lightly. The point is, when he realized what he had done, he was deeply troubled and embarrassed by his own behavior. He asked to be admitted for treatment, and he requested that we not tell anyone about it until he was able to do so himself."

"That doesn't sound like Gary," Marissa said. While Toni shifted anxiously on the seat next to hers, she felt a strange sense of calm come over her. It wasn't numbness; the part of her brain that would have normally fought back was too busy trying to find the truth hidden within the pile of lies. "He isn't a violent person, and he's always avoided anything even close to psychiatric treatment."

"I can assure you, he initiated an unprovoked attack. My orderlies have the bruises to prove it." That was Feldman and his nasal condescension. "Perhaps Mr. Hobson finally realized he needed help."

"He needs to help," she retorted. The thought of Gary facing whatever it was that had really happened alone brought hot, angry tears to her eyes. "He came here to help his friend, and whatever he's done, I know he would want—he would _need_ —to see us."

Toni stood. "I don't give a damn about what he wants, or what he's done." Her voice rose above the splashing water. "You're going to take us to him, right now, or I will bring a full contingent of CPD's best detectives in here and tear this place apart. I promise you, we will find everything you're trying to hide."

"I can't take you to him," Barnstable said after a pause, "and I can't let what you're threatening happen, either. We have our other patients to think of." There was the sound of paper being shifted. "These are the admitting forms. You can see Mr. Hobson confesses to attacking the guards and concurs with Dr. Feldman's initial diagnosis."

More paper sounds, then Toni told her, "He's signed off on everything—if that is his signature." 

"What's the diagnosis?" she asked. 

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder," Dr. Feldman said. "It's—"

"A tendency to rage and overreactions that are out of proportion to the situation," she finished. "But there has to be a pattern of that kind of behavior, of verbal outbursts and destroying property. One violent incident, even if it came out of the blue, doesn't justify that diagnosis."

"It does if we've caught him early enough and can help him before the pattern establishes itself. If you advance in this profession, Miss Clark," Feldman added with an unmistakable emphasis on her title, "you will learn that the practice of treating mental illnesses is never as straightforward as it might seem in your textbooks."

She wasn't going to let this jerk undermine everything she knew. "No matter what the diagnosis is, Gary would want to see us."

"Maybe he's afraid he'll hurt one of you if he can't control his violent impulses."

"He would _never_ hurt us," Marissa said over Toni's snort. It was their own violent impulses Feldman needed to worry about. But they had to play it cool. She drew in a breath. "Let us go to him, I'll prove it."

Dr. Barnstable let out a long-suffering sigh. "Come with me."

He led them in a different direction than the receptionist had taken Marissa on her first visit, through a hall that didn't have the sliding doors and to a small room a few yards down. "It's a bunch of monitors," Toni told her. "Camera feeds of some common areas and rooms." 

She heard the clicking of someone typing on a keyboard, then Dr. Barnstable said, "You see, Detective? This is video of Mr. Hobson's therapy session early this afternoon."

"Two thirty-four," Toni said absently. "A couple hours ago. Who is he talking to?"

"Is he okay?" Marissa asked.

"He's sitting up and talking. Can't tell about what."

"We don't have sound on our security cameras," Barnstable said. "That would violate our patients' privacy."

Toni snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure that's your number one priority. Let me see him now."

"He's in another room, resting peacefully." Feldman's voice scraped against Marissa's very last nerve. "He found that session quite taxing. Even if he wanted to speak with you, now would not be the time."

"So you have no proof he's alive?" 

"What are you suggesting, Detective?" Barnstable asked.

"Show me Manny Cabrerra's room."

"Mr. Cabrerra is—" Barnstable hesitated, and Feldman jumped in.

"Checked himself out this afternoon. It's a shame, really; so much more we could have done to help him. But he insisted on leaving."

"Against medical advice?" Toni filled in. "Seems to happen around here every once in a while, doesn't it?"

Barnstable's voice lost the honey. "It's not an uncommon occurrence in a facility like this."

Bingo, Marissa thought. Toni was right about the faked suicides. Maybe "forced" was the better word; with the right drugs and enough guilt and pain, they might be able to induce people to take their own lives. 

"What do you expect will happen to Cabrerra in the next day or so?" Toni's voice bounced around the small room. "What were you planning for him? Was he going to shoot himself? Jump off a bridge? Or maybe overdose?" No one answered; maybe, like Marissa, they were all holding their breath. "What do you have planned for Hobson?"

Marissa's gasp was a stab in her chest. If they'd caught Gary at a bad moment, or brought one on, there were any number of old wounds they could twist into guilt. 

"That's quite enough, Detective," Barnstable said. "I'll thank you to stop making unfounded accusations and leave."

"There is nothing unfounded about this! I want to see Hobson right now, and I want access to footage from yesterday of this supposed attack. I want to talk to the orderlies. I want—"

"I'm dreadfully sorry, but we can't give you anything you want. Not without a warrant. Now if you'll excuse us, we have our patients to tend to." Barnstable took Marissa's arm and jostled her out of the room.

"Let go of me." Marissa tried to throw off his hand, but she only managed to knock his shin with her cane. 

Toni pushed her way between them as they re-entered the lobby, steadying Marissa with a light touch at her elbow. "I don't need a warrant if I have probable cause."

"All I've heard so far is patently ridiculous, highly emotional speculation," Barnstable said drily. "I doubt you have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, but you're welcome to try. Until then, I hope you will allow us to maintain a peaceful atmosphere for our patients, including your friend. Who does not wish to be disturbed. Good day, Detective." Both men walked away. Marissa started after them instinctively, but Toni took her arm and pulled her up short.

"Wait." She took a couple short breaths. Collecting herself, Marissa thought. "He's right, damn it."

"But Gary—"

"Is here, and alive. Or at least he was a couple hours ago. Believe me, I want to go after him, but I don't know how far we'd get."

"It's exactly what he'd do."

"Which is why it's a bad idea. I could storm in there flashing my badge and gun, but we don't know anything about what's in there—the layout of the place, how many patients and orderlies are in between us and him. Let's go outside and I'll call for backup. If Paul couldn't talk McCarthy into a warrant before, he can now. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I mentioned those other suicides. Emotional, my ass!" she finished as they went through the entry doors. "You buy that diagnosis?"

"Not for a second." By now, Marissa knew the path from the door to the curb by heart, but she couldn't make herself take another step away. "But whatever they did to the others, whatever they were going to do to Manny, if they try it with Gary, there's no shortage of things they could draw out that he feels guilty about. It's the flip side of his sense of responsibility. He thinks he has to fix everything, and when he can't—" When he couldn't, there were late nights, heavy drinking, and Olympic-level brooding. Disappearances like this one. "Toni, we can't leave him here."

"We won't. But we're going to let them think we have." Toni nudged Marissa's elbow, and somehow Marissa moved forward, to the car. "We'll drive a few blocks away," Toni went on as Marissa got in and she rounded to the driver's side. "I'll call the station, and we'll—what the hell?"

Toni's question was followed immediately by a "meow" from the back seat, and Reilly's happy bark.

"I am not running a pet transport service!"

"It's the paper." Marissa turned in her seat, reaching back to feel the floor, the seat, the flop of Reilly's tale and the warm, familiar little cat head that butted against her arm. "Where'd you put it?"

Toni sat in the driver's seat and closed the door. "In my coat."

"Something's changed." Probably something about Gary, which gave her hope and fear in equal amounts. "You have to find whatever it is."

"You know this because the cat's in my backseat?"

"Yes, and because they know we're onto them. What if they've decided to get rid of him? They might have already—oh, God, Toni, _find_ it." 

It was an agonizing eternity, listening to Toni flip pages. Cat came to the front of the car and sat on her lap, kneading at her legs and head-butting her hand.

"Here," Toni said, almost to herself. "It's here. This location doesn't make sense. If Manny was found at LorTech--or was supposed to be--and the others were all found at the places where they'd lived or worked or had accidents, then why would Hobson be there? Maybe they were forced to pick a random spot—"

"What spot? What's happening to him?" This was as frustrating as going through the paper with Gary. "You have to tell me."

"Right." It was another endless moment before Toni read, "'The body of Gary Hobson, thirty-five, was found in an alley behind the Vanny Avenue Apartments on North Fremont Street yesterday evening. He is believed to have jumped from the roof of the building. Though no immediate cause was given for the suicide, Hobson's recent history indicates he was prone to rash behavior."

Marissa went cold. "No. Toni, no, he wouldn't do that. He's always hated heights, and ever since—" She choked on a realization. The Vanny Avenue Apartments. 

"Of course he wouldn't. They're staging these things. But why there?"

Marissa tightened her arm around Cat. "Because that's where he—he lost someone. He couldn't help it, he did everything he could, but someone he was trying to help died."

"The transient who fell off the roof."

She nodded, momentarily unable to speak.

"Oh, shit." Toni started the car and they started forward.

"But how could they possibly know about it?"

"I don't know, but it—hold on. Yeah, Paul, it's me. I'm headed for an apartment building on North Fremont street. Ring any bells? No, I mean as far as Hobson goes. Remember when you first met him? I need the address, and I need you to get people out here to Arden ASAP, before they can destroy records. Where are we with McCarthy and the warrant?"

Marissa tuned out the shop talk and pressed her right foot to the floor, willing the car to go even faster than it had on the way out. "We're going to find him, Cat." She threaded her fingers through its fur, trying to block out the possibility that they might be too late. "He's not getting out of this gig this easily."

* * *

The dark moved. He moved with it. Words danced around him in spiraling threads. He didn't try to catch them this time. He was too tired.

"—a shame, really."

"His delusion about the newspaper—" 

"You're sure the cops aren't on us?"

"Wish we could study him longer."

"--the roof. Don't know--"

"—just said to get him out and take care of it."

"—it's a lot more interesting than comic book heroes. Probably—"

"—everything we've done on the line."

"How much?"

"—figure out an escape story to go with it later. The important thing is—"

"—and make sure there's no ladder."

"—isn't a matter of getting paid this time."

"Can't leave any loose ends."

A roof, a ladder. Why did those words, out of all the words, make his stomach lurch, make him realize he had a stomach? He fought through the dark and opened his eyes. The lids weighed as much as a pair of dumbbells. He was sitting, but he was moving. One restraint across his shoulder. Seat belt. Car. No, Jeep. His Jeep. He'd never ridden in the back seat.

"Where--" The edge of the word scraped his throat, caught. So thirsty. "Where're we going?" Out the window, everything was blurry and indistinct. Orange, yellow, brown, sun. Blue sky. Fire in the trees.

Fire. Ladder. Roof.

"Where are we going?" he asked again, struggling to sit upright.

"Don't fight this, Gary." He recognized Blue-eyes' voice, but everything around him was too swimmy and blurry to figure out where she was. "You're going home."

Home was bricks and beers and a clear head. A shower in his own bathroom. Marissa holding out a towel and nagging him about doing the right thing. Toni giving him shit and trusting him enough to let down her guard. Let down. They were both waiting for him. He'd promised to call, to make time, to help, and he'd let them both down. 

"How are you feeling right now?" Blue-eyes asked. 

He had to answer. "Thirsty." Taps. The bar. Home. "We're going to McGinty's?" A bottle of green liquid swam into his vision, then out. 

"Give him the Risnol, the clear stuff, or we'll never get him up the stairs." Blue-eyes sounded a lot less calm, a lot less like the ocean, than she had before. "It'll make him suggestible without knocking him out."

A straw pushed into his mouth. Manny had told him not to drink the Kryptonite. But he was so thirsty, as if a desert's worth of sand had been shoved down his throat. What else could he do? "Save your spit and swallow it all at once," his scout leader had told him on a hike when he was eight. In Indiana. Hickory. Home. He drank.

Out the window, buildings and cars became clearer. They passed an L station filled with people waiting for a train. People—the city was full of people. People who needed help. He couldn't close his eyes, couldn't ignore them.

"What if they find this stuff in his system?" The voice was male, and close. Gary turned his head and saw a face framed by thick sideburns. He'd wanted to rip those off, once. Hadn't he? Maybe that had been a dream, because now the guy offered him more of the clear stuff that wasn't water, and he took it gratefully.

"It's experimental. They shouldn't know to look." Blue-eyes was in the front seat; another man was driving. All the white was gone, from the car, from their clothes. 

"But if they're on to us—"

"You better pray they're not." Her voice was a dark growl. "This thing happened a year and a half ago. If luck holds, nobody will think to look for him there for hours, and by morning all traces of what we've done will be gone. As long as whatever they first see fits the story we've set up, they'll buy it. They always have before."

"Never had to haul anyone up to a roof before, though. Remember how the woman fought back?" the driver asked. "This is a big guy."

"That's why we have you, Duncan."

Gary wasn't going to fight. They were taking him home. Except—they'd slowed down, turned into a residential neighborhood of apartment buildings and brownstones. He saw a street sign as they made another turn. North Fremont. Blazing maples. This wasn't home. Fire. Roof. Ladder. 

Blue-eyes turned to Gary. "Do you remember what you told me about Jeremiah Mason? How you couldn't save him? We're giving you another chance."

The car stopped. "This isn't home," Gary said, but the square block of apartments that rose before him was. Not his home. Jeremiah's. It had been Jeremiah's home, and Gary'd made him leave, and he'd fallen. "I can't go back." He couldn't fail Jeremiah. He couldn't live through that again.

Blue-eyes spoke words that didn't register, Sideburns and Driver hauled him out of the car, and somehow they all were moving, past the fiery trees and into the building. It was familiar but not. Fresh paint and woodwork. Not for long. "The boiler's going to blow." He reached for a fire extinguisher mounted to the wall. Sideburns pulled him away. "This place is going to burn."

"That's right, Gary," Blue-eyes said encouragingly. She sounded almost glad about that. "Who do you have to save?"

"Jeremiah. But I couldn't." 

They stopped at the staircase. Sideburns opened the door. "Where is Jeremiah?" Blue-eyes asked.

He'd been afraid of the fire, afraid of the ladder, afraid of Gary. "He fell."

"Not this time. This time you can save him."

"I can save Jeremiah?" If he could get him off the roof before the fire came, if Jeremiah could _live_ , it would be worth just about anything. He stared into those blue, blue eyes. She believed he could do it. 

"As soon as you find Jeremiah Mason, you can go home. Isn't that what you want?"

He nodded. She pushed up his shirt sleeve. His own sleeve, not the scrubs they'd put him in at the hospital. Plaid. He'd worn this shirt when he'd gone to save Manny. Toni had worn it, curled up against him, trusting him.

Jeremiah had trusted him. So had Manny.

"You're sure Manny's okay?"

She looked up at him, startled. "You know what, maybe you should save him, too."  
That made everything blur for a second. Manny was on the roof? 

There was a needle prick on his arm. He hardly noticed. He had to get up those stairs, had to find Jeremiah before the fire caught up with him, find Manny before he went too far trying to be Wonder Man and hurt himself. He shrugged off the hands that held him back and was halfway to the roof, the others a few steps behind, when lights exploded behind his eyes and brought him to his knees. 

He'd fallen last time, too. When the boiler blew. 

"It's hit his system. We have maybe three minutes," Blue-eyes said. Someone hauled him to his feet. "Listen to me, Gary. You have to keep moving. You have to find Jeremiah before you run out of time."

Last time, he'd found Jeremiah too late to get back down the stairs. If he had found him in time—time. She'd given him time. He felt a surge of energy, of determination, and took the rest of the stairs two at a time. His thoughts came faster now, but they were clear, they made sense.

"That's right. Keep going. You can do it this time. You have to." Blue-eyes was right behind him as he pushed the door at the top of the steps open, breathing hard between each sentence. "You're stronger. You have the power to help. What good are you if you can't save Jeremiah?"

What she said made sense. Everything made sense. It made sense that the autumn cold was exploding in fiery colors, that all his dread collapsed to this one blazing moment. He could fix his failure. He stumbled on a board that lay in front of the door, but one of the men grabbed his arm. "Come on, Batman." 

"Superman." Manny had changed his mind, said he was Superman. Clark Kent. Wonder Man. Where was Manny?

"Whatever." He thrust Gary forward, onto the wide swath of the rooftop littered with construction equipment.

Cold wind slammed into his face, with the mingled smells of tar and decay and exhaust and city and fall. His heart beat like a snare drum, but this time he could use the surge of energy, he could move. "I can smell everything. Is this how dogs feel all the time?"

"It's your new powers," Blue-eyes said. She was at his elbow, smiling up at him. Believing. "Find Jeremiah. Go after him, wherever he went. You can save him."

He could save Jeremiah. Gary stumbled to the shed where Jeremiah lived. Or where he had lived. Where the shed had been. It was just a charred pile of boards, a lump. "He's not here. Where is he?" He scanned the roof, but there was no sign of the old man or his trench coat. Or his boot. Jeremiah wanted his boot. "He put it in his coat." Gary could see that boot so clearly—the stains, the fraying lace, the flopping sole. Why couldn't he see Jeremiah?

He pushed through the wind to the edge of the roof. There was an alley down below. Another roof a few yards away. A blaze of red and orange on the edges of the building. Roof. Fire. Ladder. There'd been a ladder. He heard sirens, distant, but closing fast. The residents had called the fire department. 

One of the men took hold of his arm. "Maybe we should make sure he goes over the edge." 

Gary wrenched away. "I have to find Jeremiah first!"

"They're too close," Blue-eyes said. "Damn it, we have to go now." She moved in front of Gary. Her pony tail flapped like a flag in the wind. "Gary, if Jeremiah isn't here, where is he?"

"He's—I—" Gary looked to the edge of the roof. 

"That's right. He's down there in the alley. So that's where you'll have to go. Wherever Jeremiah's gone, you have to follow. Remember, you have new powers. You can fly to him." She pointed. "Go!"

He could fly. He could find Jeremiah. He went to the edge and looked down. Jeremiah wasn't there. He turned back, but Blue-eyes and the men were across the roof. One of them opened the stairway door. "He's not there!" Gary called. Where was the damn ladder?

"Fly if you need to!" Blue-eyes shouted over the wind. "Go after Jeremiah, Gary. You have to save him!" She stepped into the black, gaping maw of the doorway. The door slammed shut.

Gary took a step toward the door. She'd left him. But she'd told him what to do. He had to save Jeremiah. Then he could go home.

* * *

Paul found the address just as Toni hit the expressway. "What makes you so sure he's there?" 

For once, she had a logical answer for one of his questions about Gary. "You were there that day. If you were trying to stage Gary Hobson's suicide, where else would you go?"

"Good point. I always thought he was more than half-suicidal, going into that warehouse collapse a couple days later. You sure he's not now?"

"If he is, it's because of what they've done to him."

A half-growl came over the line. "You want me there?"

She wasn't sure if that would work, or if seeing Paul would just push Gary further back into the past. "I'd feel a lot better if you were on your way to Arden. They're probably destroying evidence as we speak."

"I'll send a couple locals over as a stopgap and head up there. But call if you need anything."

"Will do." Toni dropped her phone into her lap, the better to weave through the beginnings of rush hour traffic. She used the shoulder to get around some idiot going the speed limit in the left lane. "Manny was pumped full of drugs, though the doctors aren't sure what they are," she told Marissa. "No doubt Gary will be too, if we find him. He might not even know us."

" _When_ we find him." Marissa had a death grip on the cat. It watched Toni with its eerie green eyes. In the beginning, the damn thing had made her sneeze and break out in hives. Now it just freaked her out.

"Sure. When." Toni had been running unpleasant scenarios about that in her head ever since she'd read the newspaper article. "I just want you to understand. He could be agitated or violent. If these people are connected to LorTech, they have access to all kinds of crap. You know better than I do what that might do to him."

"I also know what happened on that roof and what it did to him for so long after. He needs us."

As long as he was still alive, but Toni didn't want to say that out loud. She swerved across all three lanes of traffic, took the Fullerton exit, and turned on her siren. "Figure they took him out of there once we showed up. They have up to half an hour on us."

"What if they took him away the first time I went looking for him? We'll be too late."

"It couldn't have happened that way. I would have seen it in the paper back at the station, right?" Toni looked to the passenger seat for confirmation, not sure if she was asking Marissa or the cat. "Please tell me that's how this works."

"I'm not sure. I don't always understand its rules, but--no, you're right. We would have seen it earlier if they'd decided to kill him then. We won't be too late. We can't be."

"We're here." The apartment building was brick, a nondescript five-story box with on-street parking. All the spaces were taken, one of them by a black Jeep Wrangler. "So's his car." She double parked alongside it. 

While Marissa got herself and her dog out of the car, Toni jogged over and checked out the alley on the east side of apartments. The afternoon shadows made it tough to tell what she was seeing, but nothing seemed to be shaped like a body. "Hobson?" Her voice barely cleared a whisper. She took a quick step in and an even quicker one back out. If Gary was in there somewhere, they'd find out soon enough.

She pulled the newspaper from her coat pocket, but the cat meowed from just behind her and dashed over to the apartment entrance. "He must be inside," she told Marissa. "That's where his cat's headed." Because she trusted the cat. If she put that on her report, they'd be testing her for psychotic drugs too.

But Marissa nodded. "Jeremiah was living on the roof."

The building's public entrance was unlocked, as was the door marked "Stairs" at the end of the short first floor hallway. Toni looked down at the newspaper in her hand, folded open to the story about Gary. It hadn't changed. "Five floors up, and no elevator?"

A muffled thumping sounded somewhere above. Marissa's eyes widened. "Go. I'll be right behind."

Toni didn't need urging. She thrust the paper into Marissa's hand and pulled out her gun, just in case anyone was up there with Gary. She took the steps two at a time.

The door to the roof opened from the inside. A weathered length of two-by-four was propped up against the wall that enclosed the staircase. She dropped it between the door and its frame so she wouldn't be locked out. It was nearly sunset. The sky was streaked with pink and orange. The wind picked up leaves from the surrounding trees and swirled them over the asphalt surface of the roof as she stepped away from the door, gun at the ready. 

For what felt like an eternity, she didn't see any sign of movement. She couldn't be too late. It wasn't possible. 

But it wasn't possible that her gun could be shaking in her grip, either. 

She drew in a breath and leaned back on procedure. "Chicago PD!" she shouted, moving out from the looming shelter of the stairwell and the vents surrounding it. "Anybody up here?" For a moment there was nothing but a chorus of, "Too late. Toolate, toolatetoolate," in her head. Then there was a clattering of boards behind the stairwell. 

It could be anyone, she told herself, locking her arms tight as she rounded the corner. Someone who'd drugged him up, pushed him off. Someone who'd killed him.

But it wasn't. 

Gary was crouched low, hunched against the wind and half-hidden by construction debris as he rummaged in a pile of charred boards. His hair stuck out in every direction and he was muttering something too low to make out. His clothes and hands were streaked with soot. 

He'd never looked better.

Her arms dropped with relief, then came up again while she tore her eyes away from him long enough to make sure they were alone. Remembering her own warning to Marissa about what the drugs might have done to him, she took a tentative step closer. "Hobson?" He glanced at her with zero recognition and went back to his task. 

Toni put her gun back in its holster and reached him in a few strides. "He was here. He was right here," he muttered, still digging through the burned boards. 

She grabbed his arm. His muscles were rock-tense. "You need to get off this roof. Come with me."

He stared at her for a beat, his eyes dark and wild. Then he wrenched his arm from her grip with so much force she staggered backward. He went back to the boards. "I have to find him."

"Who?"

"Jeremiah. Jeremiah Mason. He was right here. Where'd he go?"

He was seeing ghosts. What the hell was in those drugs? She ventured closer, more tentatively this time. "He isn't here, Hob—Gary. It's just us." 

"Us." He stood and grabbed her shoulders. Bits of leaves cascaded from his hands. His eyes—darker than usual, desperate--scanned the roof without ever landing on her face. "It's okay. I'm going to get us all off the roof. You look for Manny, and I'll get Jeremiah."

"Manny's at the station. He's safe." She reached up and grabbed his wrists. His pulse jackhammered against her fingertips. What would the truth do to him in this state? But she had to bring him back somehow. "Jeremiah's gone."

"I can still help him. I can save him this time. If I can't find a ladder, we'll fly."

 _Fly_? Shit. "Listen to me. You cannot save Jeremiah Mason."

"Don't tell me what I can't do!" He released her with a rough shove and she stumbled back, bumping her hip against a vent. By the time she recovered, he'd rounded the stairwell and crossed the roof. He stood at the edges, arms slightly out from his side, and looked down. They weren't out of the woods yet. She was halfway to him when the door banged open behind her. 

"Marissa, wait, don't let the door close," she shouted above the wind.

Marissa froze in the doorway, hanging onto her dog's harness and the paper with both hands. "What's going on? Where's Gary?"

"He's out here." Sidestepping along the roof's edge, he said something she could barely make out about fire trucks and ladders. "There's a board at your feet," she told Marissa, trying to keep an eye on her as she sidled toward Gary. "Use it to keep the door open. Then head to your left. There's a vent about your height there." If nothing else, it would keep her out of the wind. 

"Gary? Gary! Why won't he answer me?"

Toni was a few yards away from him. "He's not himself. Hold on, I'm going to get him away from the edge."

"Come on, Jeremiah!" Gary shouted, banging on one of the bigger vents. He darted back and forth between it and the edge like a football player practicing wind sprints. "You don't have to hide. I'll help you off the roof!"

"Hobson!" Toni stepped into his path. He ducked past her, but she grabbed his arm and used his momentum to swing him around, pulling him away from the edge. She tried to haul him to the stairs, but he planted his feet and glared at her, refusing to move. She could usually manage him, despite his size, but he wasn't usually fighting her. "Come on, Gary, I swear, I'm here to help you."

"Jeremiah is the one who needs help. I have to get him off this roof before the fire comes." He cast a look toward the alley side. "You find Manny."

He tried to shake her off, but she dug her fingers into his arm. "Jeremiah's—"

"Gary!" Marissa called. She'd moved away from the vent, closer to them, and she waved the newspaper. "I need you over here, right now."

"Why'd she come? She's gonna get hurt, damn it." He gave his arm a twist and suddenly he had hold of Toni, hauling her toward the stairway with a strength he'd never used against her. It was exactly where she'd wanted to get him, but she didn't like the look in his eyes. She'd seen him full of desperate determination to do the impossible before, but before he'd always had at least a chance to pull it off. What he wanted to do now was going to kill him.

"We came because we wanted to help you." She was having trouble catching her breath. "Because the paper told us to. Remember the paper?" He sure as hell didn't remember her. He'd barely looked at her since she'd found him. She pointed to Marissa, who still held the paper out, letting it flutter in the wind. "It said you were going to do something stupid and get yourself killed."

He stopped in front of the pile of charred lumber. "I came to fix things. To save them. I can do it this time. I have the power. I'm just not sure I can get off this roof with all three of you."

"Toni, are you okay?" Marissa tried to move toward them, but her dog kept leading her off course to get around obstacles.

"Yeah." For the moment. She had to get Gary off the roof before he really did try to be Superman and fly away. She searched his face for some sign of the man she knew—his eye-crinkling grin, his this-is-a-clusterfuck-but-I'll-fix-it determination, even the faint panic when he worried he'd taken their teasing banter too far. There wasn't a trace of any of it. What the hell had those people done to him?

She summoned her surging anger, grabbed his shirt, and pushed him to the stairway door. "Listen to me, Gary. There is no fire."

"Jeremiah?"

"You don't have to save him. There is no fire."

He blinked, and for a moment, she saw the Gary she knew in those dark, troubled eyes. "No fire?" He reached out a hand and felt the door, palm flat against it. "It's cool."

Toni's limbs went weak with relief. Too soon. "That’s ri—"

"It hasn't reached the stairwell yet." He finally _looked_ at her, blinking hard, his expression changing by the millisecond. Desperation. Confusion. Determination. Then, finally, recognition. "Toni?"

Her voice caught in her throat. She nodded. 

"You're fast. You can make it out. I'll get the others." Still holding her arm tight, he hauled the door open.

"No, Gary, listen to me. I'm not leaving you up here."

"I can't lose you. Not you." He took a step, pushing her over the threshold. "This is for your own good."

She scrabbled for sure footing, for a firm hold on him, for any way to bring him back to himself. "You come, too. We can all go down the stairs together."

"But Jeremiah—"

"Is _dead_."

"No." His expression shifted into one she knew—stubborn, obstinate. But too angry. Too lost. "I can save him this time."

"I'm sorry, Gary, but he—"

"No!" He let her go with a shove, and she pitched backward down the stairs.

* * *

She'd been making her way toward Toni's and Gary's voices, but when the door slammed, Marissa froze. Everything went--not quiet, there was too much wind, whipping leaves and who knew what else against her boots. But there was a weird moment of stillness. Even Reilly stopped the low whining that had been warning her of danger since she'd set foot on the rooftop.

And then a hitch of breath. Gary's breath. Footsteps and muttering. She reached out for him as he passed her, but he didn't stop.

"Gary? Where's Toni?"

"No, I took him out of there." Gary's voice was accompanied by the scrapes and clonks of boards being shifted and dropped. "He's hiding. He's afraid of the fire." The wind gusted to a howl. "Jeremiah, come on! I don't have a ladder this time!"

Marissa crushed the newspaper in her grip. She'd fought to get Gary back after Jeremiah died, to bring him home from the miasma of guilt and grief that had taken weeks to clear. Even after he'd been pulled out of that warehouse, there were days when he'd seemed lost to her. He'd done the paper's bidding robotically, refusing to talk about any of the stories she'd known he'd fixed. Perfectly innocent questions would elicit harsh responses, followed almost immediately by baffled apologies: "I don't know why I did that. Bad mood, I guess." It hadn't taken a psych degree to figure out what had caused it. She knew the pain of losing someone would never really go away for him, but for it to come back now, when he was at his most vulnerable, was cruel and unfair and wrong. She really _hated_ the people at Arden, right down to the receptionist--a pure, burning hate that would probably get her kicked out of church.

It was fuel, though. "Find Gary," she told Reilly. They moved together toward the sound of Gary's voice, with Reilly leading her through what felt like an obstacle course. When he stopped and gave the quick bark that meant he'd found a friend, she could hear Gary breathing right in front of her. 

"What if he's already down there?" he muttered. "She said I had to save him. What good am I if I can't?"

"Stop it, Gary." Nearly choking on her plea, Marissa extended the paper, but he didn't grab it or take her hand the way he would have if he was there, if he was himself. She swung the paper in an arc in front of her—empty space. Traffic sounds rose from the street below. "How close are we to the edge? Where's Toni?" Before her swinging hand could connect with Gary, Reilly butted his head against her legs, pushing her backward. 

"What's this for?" Gary grabbed the paper, and she latched onto his arm. 

"It's the paper. Your paper." She curled her fingers around his forearm; his muscles tensed. She wasn't strong enough to stop him if he decided to bolt, and she couldn't fight the chemicals flooding his brain. But if she could hold on, keep him talking to her until the drugs wore off, they might have a chance. "You use it to save people, remember? You've used it to save Manny, and me, and Toni. Remember Toni? Where is she?"

Several pages brushed her face, then were carried away by a gust of wind. Between them, Reilly whined. "I don't need it." His voice cracked with the same desperation that flooded her. "I have other powers now. I have to save Jeremiah, Marissa, don't you under—" He stopped trying to pull away from her. "Marissa?"

"Yes, it's me. Listen to me, Gary, there is no fire. Jeremiah's not in danger." 

"It's all around us. The trees are burning, and it's closing in. Why did you come here?" He took hold of her shoulders and spun her so quickly she lost balance and breath. Reilly barked and whined and tried to get between them again, but Gary hauled her to the edge, swinging her back and forth. "We have to get you off the roof. I've got Jeremiah to save." 

Somehow, Marissa still had a handful of his sleeve held tight in her fist. "Gary, no—"

"Hobson? Marissa?" Toni's voice seemed a long way away.

"Over here," Marissa started, but Gary yanked on her arm. Reilly barked frantically, trying to push her legs in the opposite direction from the one in which Gary pulled her.

"Batgirl. Manny said you're Batgirl. Can you fly?"

"No!" What was taking Toni so long? 

"I have to get you off this roof, and then I'll find Jeremiah. But there's no ladder."

"Well, thank God for that, because I am not crawling between buildings." She couldn't get her feet planted. " _Stop_ , Gary, please, just listen to me. You're not Superman or Batman, you're better than that. You've already saved Manny, did you know that? You--ow!" Her shoulder banged into a metal outcrop of something or other and she stumbled out of Gary's grip. Reilly planted his paws on her chest and pushed backward. For the space of a heartbeat, she was sure she'd gone off the edge, but then she landed abruptly on the cold, wet rooftop. 

Reilly flopped into her lap. "Oh, God—Marissa? Are you—" Gary broke off when Reilly let out a growl.

"I'm okay," she gasped. She wasn't entirely sure about that, but at least when she'd fallen, she hadn't fallen far. "Reilly, it's okay. It's Gary."

"What's going on?" Toni, finally. Her steps were uneven, her voice a tight growl. "What the hell did you do?"

"I—I hurt—both of you." Gary shuffled back a few steps, toward the traffic sounds, toward the edge of the roof, and his voice got heavy, slurred and weighted with the same guilt that had nearly just killed them both. "I couldn't save him."

"Get back here." Toni stepped over Marissa's legs. "We're okay. So are you."

"I'm not. You said it yourself, Jeremiah's dead. That's my fault."

"It's not—damn it, Gary, get away from the edge."

Marissa had to get to them, but she couldn't do it with sixty-five pounds of golden retriever holding her down. "Good boy, it's okay." She gave Reilly a couple of reassuring pats and pushed him out of her lap; made her way to the sound of their voices one careful step at a time. Reilly, undeterred, pushed against her legs. "Sit, Reilly. I promise I won't fall."

"He trusted me, and I let him fall. You trusted me."

"And I fell, and I came back." Toni put a hand on Marissa's arm. "We both did."

"But I don't have powers." He sounded utterly defeated. "I couldn't save Jeremiah. He's gone. Why are you here?"

Marissa took another step forward, hand out. "Because we do trust you, Gary. Because you're not alone in this." It seemed like the most stupidly obvious thing she'd ever said. Did she need to say it because the drugs had made him forget, or because he'd never really gotten it through his head? "You've never been alone."

"You—I'm—" The wind gusted between them, cutting Gary off and blowing what had to be a page of the newspaper against her leg. Just behind Marissa, Toni let out a gasp, but Gary caught Marissa's hand. She gave it a tug, backing toward Toni. Away from the edge. "You're here," he said on a ragged breath.

"Of course we are."

"Where else would we be, you dope?" Toni sounded as shaky as Marissa felt.

Gary's fingers tightened around hers. "What's wrong with me?"

"You were in a hospital," Marissa said. "What did they do to you?"

"Wake me up, put me to sleep, over and over. I'm so tired. They poke my arm and I wake up. I drink the Kryptonite and it's dark and I fall. She said I could save Jeremiah. She said I had the power, but I failed. Who am I if I couldn't save him?"

"You're human," Marissa said, praying he'd remember that much. 

"You're what this mess of a city needs," Toni added, closer and quieter.

"No, no, Manny was right. People need Wonder Man and Superman. They could have saved Jeremiah."

"Stop it," Toni said sharply. "Manny didn't know what he was talking about. We don't need those guys, because we have—we have—Marissa, what do we have?"

"Someone who keeps trying." She twisted her hand in Gary's, laced her fingers between his, and it all came out. "Who makes mistakes and keeps going anyway. Who ignores me all day but won't let me go home alone at night. Who Toni can fight with when she needs to let off steam." He didn't answer, and she couldn't read his silence. "Think of all the people who are alive now because of you," she pushed on, remembering what he'd said Lucius Snow had told him in the warehouse: count the living. "Frank Price. Amanda Bailey. Chris, and Miguel--"

"Stop." Gary pulled his hand out of hers; she reached for him and got nothing. 

"Don't forget the president," Toni said. "I've read your file, Hobson, I could do this all day. Addie and Rachel Pemberton, and that kid at the church who was going to swallow the jingle bell. Winslow and Paul."

"And Chuck, and Crumb, and me," Marissa added.

"And me," Toni finished softly. 

"But not Jeremiah," Gary said. The edges of his words were soft and slurry. Somewhere below them, a siren wailed close, then cut off.

"Not Jeremiah," Marissa admitted, unsure how much he could handle with all his vulnerabilities laid bare. "We're none of us worth more than him. You can't go back in time and save him. Nothing will make that happen. But the thing is, you won't save anyone new, all the names that are waiting to be added to that list, if you give up now."

"I can't—" He stopped and coughed, dry and exhausted. "I don't know if I can do it alone."

"Lucky for you, you're not alone." Toni said, with a hoarse edge to her voice that matched Gary's. 

"We'll stay with you," Marissa promised. Her hand finally connected with his arm, and he didn't pull away. "I swear it, Gary."

"Even if I mess up?"

"Especially if you mess up," Toni said. 

"But—why?"

"That's what friends do," Marissa told him.

Toni's answer was a kiss—one that went on long enough for Marissa to move herself out of their way on shaky legs. Reilly pushed against her; this time, she took his harness. "Good boy," she said. "You did good."

After a long moment in which Marissa tried to focus on the sounds of wind and sirens, and not whatever was happening a few feet away, Gary whispered, "Sorry. I'll make it up to you somehow."

"I have a few ideas," Toni said, but there was too much relief in her voice for it to be the usual edgy teasing she exchanged with Gary.

Gary's hand landed on Marissa's shoulder, more weighty than usual. "Can we go home now? I'm really tired."

"Sure, we'll go home." Marissa tried a few steps in the direction Reilly was indicating, but Gary slumped into her and she stumbled.

"He's losing consciousness," Toni said. "System's probably on overload. They fed him more crap than he could take."

"More than anyone should have to."

"Let's get him down." Together they eased Gary onto the roof. Marissa sat next to him and supported his shoulders, trying to keep his head, at least, off the wet rooftop. While Reilly whined in confusion, Toni went to the roof's edge and called to whoever was down below that they needed a gurney.

"Want to go home," Gary murmured. 

Remembering what he'd said about falling in the dark, Marissa rested her hand on the arm he'd flung across her lap and promised, "You're not going alone."

* * *

Even in the dark, there was a difference between falling and floating. This time, Gary floated, wrapped in peace and silence until he was ready to open his eyes on his own. No needle prick, no paralyzing restraints, no jumble of disconnected words and thoughts to sort through. Instead, there were voices, low and tense, but steady. His voices. His people.

"…quite the cocktail," Toni was saying. "The tox screen caught at least three different substances, two of which the docs here had never seen before. If they'd given him much more, it would have killed him."

"What they did give him came too close to doing exactly that." Marissa's voice had the quietly dangerous quality to it that meant she was ready to take someone down any way she could. Gary let his eyes drift open and saw them huddled by a big window off to the side. The room was pale green, not white, and the window offered a view of office buildings and a parking lot. Not as beautiful as the trees, but at least he wasn't likely to mistake fall leaves for fire, like he had out on the roof.

The roof. His heart sped up at the thought of the roof, of the charred shed. But this time when he took a deep breath it felt like it worked. Like he was in control. 

"They took him to the edge of the worst thing he's ever been part of and left him there alone," Marissa went on. "I don't understand. There are real people who need psychiatric help and medication, and they're spending time and money creating suicide drugs and uppers and downers and—whatever it was that made him believe their lies. How could they?"

"Murder for hire pays better than actual healing," Toni said. She stood with her arms crossed, feet planted slightly apart. "The other victims we've identified so far either had rich relations, or had hurt people whose families had money."

"But that's awful. Who'd pay to have someone like Manny killed? Or Gary?"

"In Manny's case, it was LorTech." Toni sounded controlled, Gary thought. But then, that was her job, wasn't it? To figure out what was going on and stop the bad stuff. She'd stopped him falling in more ways than one, and in return he'd—what had he done to her out on that roof? He remembered her being there; he remembered being angry at something she'd said about Jeremiah. And then she wasn't there. 

"The more desperate he got to relieve his guilt, the more likely he was to spill the beans about the settlement they'd arranged for his family in return for him taking the fall," she went on. "As for Gary, he probably stumbled onto evidence without realizing it and scared them badly enough that they wanted to get rid of him."

"Not before they used him as a test subject," Marissa said darkly. Dog tags rattled as Reilly, who was curled up on the floor in the corner with them, lifted his head at her tone. She reached down to scratch his head.

"The good news is, they kept thorough records of everything. None of them is going to be able to hurt anyone else for a long time."

"And Manny's getting real help this time." Marissa didn't sound one bit placated. "I can't believe those doctors could know that much about how people tick and not have an ounce of compassion or responsibility or ethics. It goes against every reason I went into this field."

"Which is why you're going to be great at it."

"I'm worried it's going to cement Gary's fear of counseling. He needs—"

"Hey," Gary croaked out before she could finish that thought. "What's a guy have to do to get a drink around this place?"

They turned around, both their shoulders dropping at the same time. Toni got to him first. "'Bout time you rejoined the living." She touched his upper arm, a brush of her fingers that warmed him through the hospital gown, then handed him a glass from the bedside table. No straw, and it was half ice. 

He peered into it, then back at her. "It's just water, right?"

"Yeah." She quirked that sideways grin that always got him. "Of course, it comes out of Lake Michigan, so who knows if it's entirely clean, but there's nothing in there that'll make you think you're Superman."

He downed all the liquid in a couple of gulps. "Not the lake," he said, holding the glass out for more. "Heaven." Toni rolled her eyes and refilled the glass from a pitcher. 

Marissa, who'd made it to the other side of his bed, put a hand on the rail. "Take it easy with the water, partner. The doctors said you'd crave it, but we don't want to overload your system again."

Gary stopped mid-gulp. He looked to Toni for confirmation, but she just shrugged. He swallowed what was in his mouth. "I'll sip at the rest of it." He could do this all day. Icy water at the back of his throat, no white-coated, snub-nosed, blue-eyed doctors telling him what he had to do. No roof, no fire, no ghosts. "That work for you?"

Marissa nodded. "As long as you're feeling better. Gary—"

"He's awake?" A woman in blue scrubs, hair pulled back in a neat pony tail, bustled into the room. "You should have told me." Toni and Marissa stepped back while she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Gary's arm and slapped a thermometer strip on his forehead. "Hi, Gary, I'm Kelsey. I'll be your nurse this morning."

Nurses. There'd been nurses—no, orderlies. Dr. Feldman had called them orderlies, but they were more like bouncers. He darted a look at Toni, who gave him a quick nod. If she was letting this Kelsey do things to him, it had to be okay. "Did you say, 'morning?'"

"Eight forty-two on the button," Kelsey said. "You've been asleep for almost eighteen hours, mister. Must have been one hell of a busy week for you."

The paper would have come two hours ago. He reached for his back pocket, then realized he didn't have one. "What about—" 

"Your butt?" Kelsey asked wryly. "No one told me you hurt that."

"No, no, I was just looking for something."

"It's okay," Toni said. "Your, uh—" She looked at Marissa.

"Cat," Marissa said firmly. "He's fine. You know we always take care of him when you can't. Don't worry." It was more command than reassurance, and Gary was okay with obeying. For now.

"You wake up worried about your cat? That's sweet." Kelsey pressed her fingers against his wrist and looked at her watch. After a few seconds she dropped his wrist, flashed a tight smile and pulled a small plastic-wrapped needle out of her pocket, along with a vial. "We're going to run your blood work again to see if all that nasty stuff is out of you. Dr. Dodgson—hey, what's wrong?" She'd picked up his hand again and was staring at it. 

Gary stared too, surprised to see it shaking. He swallowed hard, and his heart pounded. "The last time someone—they had needles and I couldn't control—" His mind, his words, his body.

"Gary, it's okay." Marissa held out a hand. Her forehead furrowed a little. Concerned, Gary thought, but not deeply worried. "She's not putting anything in you. She's taking out a little blood. You're in control, and we're right here. We won't let anything happen to you. Breathe."

He felt like a kindergartner for needing to hear it, but he did. He drew in a breath.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." But he closed his eyes when Kelsey poked the needle into his fingertip and squeezed a few drops into the vial.

"All done," she said, sounding a little amused. He opened his eyes to find her smiling. It was a crooked smile, but not nearly as cute as Toni's. When she smiled. Which she looked miles from doing right now. Kelsey tilted her head to the side and regarded him. "So now that you're awake, tell me how you feel physically."

He thought about it. "My arm's a little sore. Still have a headache, but nothing like before. What did they do to me?"

"That's not my department, hon. I'm sure Dr. Dodgson will be able to tell you more. He'll be by on his rounds in a bit, okay?" She stripped off her gloves, wrote a few numbers on the white board on the wall, and gave him a final smile. "You just lie back and rest." She pointed a finger at Toni and Marissa. "You two let him rest. Call me right away if anything changes. Got it?"

They nodded, and Kelsey left. Gary pushed himself upright. Rolling her eyes, Toni helped him raise the bed so he could stay that way without having to hold his head up, which was a good thing. The throbbing at the back of his head was distant, but it was still there. He eased himself back against the bed and took another drink of water, reveling in the freedom of being able to choose what he drank and how much. It wasn't a whole lot of freedom, but it was better than the past—what had it been? Couple days? "Where's the paper?"

"Where you can't read it," Toni said curtly. 

"There were only two stories this morning," Marissa told him. "I took care of one with a phone call, and Toni's going to handle the other one."

"What were they?"

"Did you hear that nurse?" Toni asked. "You're supposed to rest." 

"But it's my responsibility."

"Not today," Marissa said. "The paper came to us this morning, not you."

"How do you know that? You were in this room, so if it showed up here, it could just as well have been for me. It's _always_ for me. That's what the damn thing wants, is me going forever and saving the day."

"I don't care what the paper wants," Marissa said, surprisingly snappish. "You were asleep when it came, so we made plans to deal with it, just like we did yesterday."

"What happened yesterday? What did I miss?"

"Hey, calm down." Toni's hand on his shoulder was far gentler than the orderlies and restraints, but Gary had to force himself not to fight it. "Don't be such an idiot, Hobson. You need to heal."

"Yeah, but from what?" Maybe instead of the paper he needed to start with what had been done to him. "Come on, you two. What really happened?"

"What do you remember?" Marissa asked. She was back to looking worried as hell.

"I went to ask about Manny, and I—I fell, or—I don't know."

"You were hit on the head." Toni said. "Got a bump the size of a tomato." 

He reached back and felt it. "Cherry tomato, maybe."

"Yeah, well, it shrunk over night. So you probably did fall. What next?"

"I kept falling. It was dark and I was falling. Somewhere in there I stopped waiting to hit bottom. But they pulled me out and put me back. I kept waking up and not being able to control my heartbeat, always thirsty, always talking. She wanted me to talk about the paper, and boy, did I."

Marissa sucked in a sharp breath. Toni glanced at her, then asked Gary, "How did you end up at the apartment building? Do you remember?"

Gary closed his eyes briefly; his memories of that ride were all jolted and blurred. "They took me away in my Jeep, and then we were up on the roof. I was looking for Jeremiah." They knew that of course; he knew they knew, and not just because of Marissa's wince, or the empathetic grimace on Toni's face. They'd been there, trying to stop him. "It's all kind of mixed up after that." He'd been so sure there was a fire, he'd seen it, and he'd gone after Jeremiah. He'd been so sure he could fix it, and so angry when someone had told him he couldn't.

"Did you really believe Jeremiah was there?" Marissa asked.

"She told me I could save him. The doctor with the blue eyes," he said at Toni's quizzical look. "I don't know why, but I remember trusting her."

"It was the drugs," Toni told him. 

"Yeah, I guess so." It had all seemed so real. "When she left, she told me I had to save him. But I couldn't _find_ him." Not in the remains of the shed, not behind the vents, not in the alley below. He'd been so sure. "I knew I'd failed all over again, and I—I think I kinda panicked." Understatement of the year, judging by the tension in Toni's shoulders, Marissa's tight-knuckled grip on the bedrail. "But you were there. What'd I do to you?"

"We're fine," Toni said quickly. Too quickly. "My ankle got twisted, but it'll be fine."

"Fine" was code for anything but; he'd learned that much back when he'd been married to Marcia. "Fine" meant, "figure it out for yourself."

He closed his eyes, drew up a memory of the roof and Toni, looking up at him from big, dark eyes partially obscured by her windblown hair. She'd told him Jeremiah was dead. He'd wanted to stop her saying that, but at the same time he'd wanted to get her safe. He remembered a door, a darkness, a clang. Then wind and fire, always the fire and never Jeremiah.  
"Toni, I'm sor—"

"Don't you dare. You're not responsible for anything that happened on that roof."

How could she know that? He'd never once told her about Jeremiah Mason. "I'm responsible for everything that happened up there! Both times."

"The hell you are," Toni snapped. "They had you so full of drugs you didn't even know who we were. I'd bet you didn't even know who _you_ were up there."

"Not at first," he acknowledged. "Not this time."

"Gary." Marissa inched her hand along the railing, and he knew she was waiting for him to make contact, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. He damn well didn't deserve it. "What happened to Jeremiah might have been because of what you did, but you did it out of responsibility. Out of love."

"Oh yeah? Then why does it still hurt? How many times is this thing going to come back?" How many times did he have to fall down that hole without ever hitting bottom?

"I don't know. All I know is that it isn't fair, it isn't right, for those people to turn your mind and your fears against you like they did." Marissa swallowed hard, her eyes bright. "And I know every time it does come back, we'll be here. I said that up on the roof, and I'm telling you now, you are not alone in this. Can you trust that much?"

The thing was, he did trust it, at least as far as Marissa was concerned. He must have; even when he'd been drugged to the gills he'd expected her to be there. He'd expected Toni, too. Trusted her to show up looking exactly as peeved and gorgeous as she did right now, watching him with her lips twisted into some kind of knot. When she had shown up, though, he'd hurt her. That was the problem with his trust; it tended to get people into trouble. 

"I know it took us a while to find you," Marissa said when he didn't answer. "And I wish it hadn't. I'm just so relieved we found you in time."

"Yeah, well, I am, too." It came out more grudging than grateful, but if Gary trusted anything at this point, it was that Marissa would figure out what he really meant. "Did I hurt you, too?"

She shook her head, lips pressed together. Even silent, she was a terrible liar, but he knew better than to push it. At this point, he really wanted to change the subject. "So do you know why they did it? Who are they, anyway?"

Toni darted a look between Gary and Marissa, then took a folder from the bedside table and pulled out a stack of mug shots. "Any of those look familiar?"

Mug shots meant they were in jail. They couldn't hurt him, could they? Toni's shoulders had relaxed all of a sudden, as if doing police work meant things were getting back to normal. He took in a deep breath, let it out slow, and forced himself to take a good look. Snub-nose's scowl in the first shot didn't look any different from the one he'd been trying to hide when Gary'd first met him. "Yeah. He said he was Manny's doctor, but he also said I'd attacked an orderly. Did I?"

"Of course not," Marissa said loyally. "You wouldn't attack anyone."

"Not without a good reason." A smile tugged at the corners of Toni's mouth. "But no, this time it was all their doing. Paul found footage from their security cameras. They knocked you out when you tried to stop them taking Cabrerra out of the hospital. And then they—" She shifted a look at Marissa, whose jaw twitched. "They put quite a concoction of drugs into you and--well, you know the basics. We're still working out the details."

"What happened to Manny?"

"He got out. He actually found us and let us know you were in Arden," Marissa told him. "As far as I'm concerned, he really is a super hero."

"But he'll be okay?"

Toni nodded. "He's in the psych ward upstairs, but the doctors are helping him work through everything that happened. We had to promise to let him visit you before he agreed to check in, so I'm sure he'll be by later today." She moved Feldman's photo to the bottom of the pile. "Next?" Gary shook his head at the mug shot of a balding man. "That's Barnstable, the director of the institute. Not surprised you don't recognize him. He probably kept his hands clean. How about the last one?"

He gulped. "Blue-eyes."

Toni frowned at the black and white mug shot. "How can you tell?"

"I didn't know her name, but she's the one who asked all the questions. I--I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it." Had he still been drugged up, he might have told them about her eyes and how he'd drowned in them, but he was in control now, and Toni didn't need to know about that. "I told her everything about the paper and the people and Jeremiah, and the next thing I knew she was with me on that roof." His voice cracked on the last word. He reached for the water glass, and no one scolded him for taking a long drink. 

"Dr. Elizabeth Charles, chief psychiatrist of Arden's Ward D." The hint of shakily contained anger in Toni's pronouncement was matched by the stormy look on Marissa's face. Gary might almost feel sorry for Blue-eyes if she ever ended up alone in a room with either one of them. Almost. "We think she's the one who arranged secret drug trials with LorTech, along with a few other side projects."

"Side projects?"

"They were killing people. Forcing them to commit suicide by working their guilt to the breaking point and enhancing everything with the drugs they fed them." 

"That's what was going to happen to me? And you saw it in the paper?" They both nodded. He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I wish you hadn't."

"I _don't_ ," Marissa said fiercely. "I don't wish we hadn't gone there, because right now we'd be mourning you, and trying to prove that you hadn't done what everyone else would have been convinced you'd done, and Manny might be dead, too. That would have hurt a hell of a lot worse than a bruised shoulder." Gary exchanged a look with Toni, who raised an eyebrow, daring him to jump in. He opened his mouth to say something, but Marissa wasn't finished by a longshot. "I'm not _sorry_ , I will never be sorry, for knowing you and knowing about the paper and—God, Gary, it's not your fault, it wouldn't have been your fault no matter what had happened. You have got to stop blaming yourself and stop saying you're sorry for things you can't control and people—evil people—who did things to hurt you. If you don't, you'll never move past this."

"Okay." He finally grabbed her hand; it shook in his. "Okay, I get it. I really do."

"You know I hate that word."

"Yeah. I shouldn't have said it." He waited a bit, then tried to put a grin in his voice when he added, "Sorry 'bout that." That got the barest hint of a smile out of her. Better than nothing. 

The familiar, annoying trill of Toni's phone cut off whatever any of them would have said next. 

"Brigatti. Yeah? No, I want in." She took a step back from the bed, and mouthed, "Winslow," at him with an exaggerated eye roll. "It's still my case. They're both my cases….Okay, fine, _our_ cases. I can deal with interrogations any time, but I want in on that sting. It was my source that landed us O'Reardon…No. Never. Not on your—do you want me to out you as a comic book nerd to the entire bullpen?...In a heartbeat…Not a chance. I will be there, Winslow. You make sure they wait for me…No, he's fine, he's—shut up. I'll be there ASAP. Bye."

"Everything all right?" Marissa asked. She still had hold of Gary's hand, like she was afraid he'd fall away from her again.

"Oh, just…peachy." Toni shot Gary another eyeroll, and he couldn't help grinning back. The miasma of the last couple days lifted a little bit. "Look, I have to get to the station. At least this time I have an excuse for being in the same clothes," she added with a rueful glance at the dust and dirt smudges on her dark pants.

"They know?"

"Another entry for your file."

He groaned, even though he was pretty much used to being the butt of the bullpen's jokes. "Look, can't I just go home, too? I can rest there just as well as I can here."

"Not yet." Marissa pulled her hand away after a reassuring little squeeze. "The doctor has to see you."

"I don't want any more doctors. I want to go home."

"Too bad." Toni rested her hand lightly on his thigh, and Gary had a moment of being unreasonably angry at the sheet covering it. "Your body is state's evidence. The results of all the tests they did on you here while you were out of it? They're going to put Doctors Feldman, Barnstable, and Charles out of business for good." She gave his leg a pat, then bent down and brushed a kiss across his cheek. 

"Hey." He'd gone hoarse again, but for a completely different reason. "I can't even—I don't know where to start thanking you."

Her quirky grin turned him inside out, as did her lowered, teasing voice. "I can think of a few things. Maybe I'll make a list."

"You just do that." 

She gave his leg a final pat, then went to the corner chair for her coat. "Marissa, I'll ask my captain about that practicum. He'll know who to contact."

"What practicum?"

"I'm thinking of doing my senior shadowing with CPD," Marissa told him. "Toni says they need consulting psychologists."

"Consulting psychologist," Gary repeated. "You want me to deal with the two of you having badges, being around Armstrong and Winslow and all those people who want to know my secret?"

"I don't know about badges, but I'd say we did a pretty good job of handling it yesterday." 

Toni nodded. "Don't look so scared, Hobson. We need negotiators and counselors who can help us understand how to do our jobs better. Marissa already has more experience with handling that kind of stuff than most civilians ever will."

"The two of you teaming up? That'll make my life—"

"—so very much better," Toni finished for him. She flashed one more grin. Not being able to follow it out the door was going to kill him outright. Then again, so was the slight limp in her step. "I'll be back. Don't go anywhere."

"What about you?" Gary asked Marissa when he could find his voice again. "Don't you have a class to go to or something?"

"Not on Saturday. But I do have a test to study for, and I could use some help. Unless you want to sleep or flirt with the nurses or something." The teasing note in her voice was more tentative than Toni's had been.

He flopped back against the bed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Not gonna happen. You'd tell Toni, since the two of you are joined at the hip now. I'd prefer to live, thank you very much."

A strange look crossed Marissa's face—a flash of anger or pain—but by the time he figured out what he'd said to cause it, it was gone. She went to the window well where her backpack sat, nudging a snoring Reilly out of her way. Gary realized she knew the layout of the typical hospital room almost as well as she knew McGinty's, and considered apologizing for that, but he didn't want another outburst. She extracted a pair of books from the backpack, one in Braille and one in print: _GRE Sample Problems_. They both had red bookmarks sticking out of their tops. "I'll have one of our staff bring sandwiches in a couple hours," she said as she handed him the books and went back for a chair. "I know how much you hate hospital food."

"They didn't bring me any food at that other place," Gary groused. "But then again, it's not like I had time to feel hungry."

She pushed the chair to the bedside and sat down. "Sure you want to do this?"

He handed her the Braille book. "I told you, it's just a headache. We ought to be doing this at home."

"That's not what I mean." She toyed absently with the bookmark. "I was beginning to wonder if you wanted me to keep going in school, the way you kept ducking out on me." Her tone was casual, but there was a sense of held breath as she waited for his response.

"No! No, I don't—I mean, I can't say I'm not worried about what will happen at the bar, and with the paper, but I won't hold you back. I wouldn't dare try."

"I appreciate that. It's going to be a lot of extra work, but we can figure it out—the bar, the paper, and school." She spread her hand flat against the book cover. Gary almost asked if she could read the title all at once with her palm like that, but the look on her face was still serious and firm. "Gary, what you do with the paper—it's why I'm doing this in the first place. Being your friend through this, I've learned how many people need help, and how many ways there are to get them that help. A counseling degree is a way for me to help even more. It does not mean I'm leaving you. The only way you're getting rid of me is if you tell me to go."

"Not gonna happen." He wondered if she could hear the relief in his voice, the sense that he'd finally landed on solid ground. 

Maybe she did, because she finally cracked a grin. "Even though you have Toni around now?"

A frisson of worry crossed his mind. Did he really have Toni? She'd never seen him like he'd been the past few days; she hadn't known until now about his worst failure. But Marissa needed him, and not just for her test, so he brushed the worry away for the moment and chuckled. "Hell, I might need a friend more, with her around. Just as long as the two of you don't team up against me."

"Don't give us a reason." She opened her book to the marked page. "Let's work on analogies. I swear every fourth question depends on shape or color."

"We'll get you through this," Gary promised. "Anything you need."

* * *

"I know he's a federal witness." Ducking into McGinty's foyer, Toni shifted her phone to the other ear and unbelted her coat. "But I'm telling you, you have to keep Hennepin on a tight leash. His ex-wife has a restraining order on him."

"You know we're not in Chicago, right?" Tristan McCall, the US Marshal who'd drawn WITSEC duty for James Hennepin, sounded vaguely bored.

Toni knew better than to name the location over the phone, but even though Hennepin was two thousand miles away in Tacoma, Washington, she wasn't about to let him off the hook. Speaking of which, why was someone else's coat on her hook? And when the hell had she decided she had a hook of her own here? "I do realize that. I just don't want him starting up that pattern with anyone new. The guy may be a protected witness, but he's also a weasel. Don't let him bite anyone else."

"Okay, okay." McCall's chuckle was one step away from patronizing. "Gotta run, Toni. I have an intake meeting in ten."

"Bye." Toni shook off her frustration and found an open hook. A couple years ago, she would have been just as impatient with a local cop trying to tell her what to do. As exasperating as her current job could be, though, most days she really didn't miss the Marshals. She especially didn't miss babysitting slimeballs like Hennepin. She'd done what she could do to protect the world from him; it was time to relax. 

The place was busy, but not full; the buzz of conversation from the tables and booths didn't quite cover the clicking pool balls at the table over in the corner. She headed for the bar, where AJ held out a glass of wine. "Been expecting you, Detective Brigatti." 

"I keep telling you, it's Toni." A quick, appreciative sip, and the weight of twelve straight days on the job lifted, if not completely off her shoulders, then at least a few feet above them.

He flashed a smile, showing off a pair of perfect dimples. A face anyone could unload to. The perfect bartender. "From what I hear, you've earned the title the past couple weeks. The O'Reardon indictment was the top story on every channel tonight." He nodded to a table in the back corner. "Marissa's over there. Mr. H. had to run out and take care of something."

"What else is new? Thanks."

Toni was surprised to find Manny Cabrerra at the table with Marissa. He was wearing an oxford, but she could see the neck of a black t-shirt underneath. She sidled past his chair and a snoozing guide dog so she could sit with her back to the wall and look out into the bar. And both the main entry and the office door, but that was a coincidence. She was being a careful cop, not anxiously looking out for Gary. "Hey, Marissa." 

"Congratulations, Detective." Marissa held out her glass, which was half-empty. 

Toni clinked hers against it. "You, too, Counselor."

Marissa shook her head. "All I've done is get through a glorified entrance exam. I don't even know the results yet. Not quite the same thing as closing a case against the Irish mob."

"Commissioner Gordon!" Cabrerra had a glass of what looked like soda and a basket of fries that was pretty much demolished. "Are you here to turn on the Bat Signal?"

"I thought Gary was Superman," Toni said. She'd also thought Cabrerra was in treatment.

Some of her surprise must have leaked into her voice, because Marissa said, "Manny doesn't really believe anyone's a superhero, do you Manny?"

"Most days I don't." Manny twirled a chewed-up straw in his drink. "Dr. Dodgson says that was my way of organizing a world I didn't understand when I couldn't cope with—" He swallowed hard and pasted on a look of sheer determination. "--with what I'd done, back when I worked for LorTech." With a satisfied nod, he sat back in his seat and smiled right at Toni, a big, wide smile with real intelligence behind it. "I've paid the price, and I'm moving on. If my wife and son can forgive me, I figure I can forgive myself, right? But sometimes I forget names. I was never very good with those on my best days."

"Toni Brigatti." She held out her hand. He shook it in a firm grip.

"Dr. Emmanuel Cabrerra. But you can call me Manny. It's not like I'm an evil scientist any more. Is your partner coming? He promised to show me his first edition Wonder Woman."

Toni nearly choked on her wine at that last bit. "Um, no, he won't be here tonight."

"Yeah, he probably doesn't want to bring it out in a public place. Does he keep it in his safe with his Star Wars trading cards?"

This time she did choke. "Not sure," she said when she recovered. "I've never asked." But she certainly would now. She turned to Marissa, who was trying and failing to hide a yawn. "So it went okay today?"

Marissa nodded. "It was a long few hours, but I think I did well. It helped that Gary was forced to stay in bed for a few days when I needed to study most. Working through the practice tests kept his mind off what happened to him." She took a drink—not a sip. More like a swig. "Speaking of which, what's going on with the charges against those people at Arden?"

For once, Toni didn't mind talking shop. "There'll be a grand jury next week, but the case against them is airtight. Good thing about researchers, even the shady ones, is they keep detailed records. Once we lined them up with coroners' reports and medical records of patients who actually survived Ward D, we had to use a spreadsheet to add up the charges. The State's Attorney told me it doesn't matter how many contacts at LorTech they give up, there are so many counts against them the most they can deal for is a reduced number of life sentences."

"That's a relief," Marissa said, though she looked troubled. "And good for you. Two huge cases wrapped up in as many weeks? That's impressive."

"You're doing important work," Manny said with a judicious nod. "Like Dr. Dodgson says, it's the cops and firefighters who are the real superheroes."

"It's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds." Toni took another none-too-delicate sip of her wine just as Reilly lifted his head. His wagging tail hit her boots; she looked up and saw Gary, clad in jeans and his brown bomber jacket, walk in the front door and head straight for their table. "Most of the Arden case was a matter of cross-referencing hundreds of files and reports. The only danger was a couple of paper cuts."

"Still worth celebrating." Gary pulled out the empty chair, spun it around, and straddled it, arms crossed over the top of the seat. He waved two fingers between Marissa and Toni. "The both of you. You too, Manny."

"Me?"

"Moving back in with your family, that seems like a pretty big deal." He patted Reilly's head, which was plopped in his lap. There was something faded about his smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes. Toni'd been busy—they both had, really—since he'd been released from the hospital. They'd shared a few phone calls, plus a stolen drink and a quick kiss last Sunday afternoon. He'd sworn he was better, no problems at all. Now that she had time to get a good look at him, though, she wondered if he was fully recovered. 

"What about you?" she asked casually. "Good day today?"

He ran a hand through his hair, sending a few ends sticking out in wild directions. "Small fire in a fryer over at Portillos, cyclist wiped out on a jetty and fell into the lake, heart attack on a bus, convenience store robbery. You know, the usual," he finished with a shrug. He gazed down at his hands as if they held an answer he couldn't quite read.

"You okay, Hobson?" A quick glance to the side, where Marissa tapped her fingers on the stem of her wine glass in a nervous pattern, told Toni she wasn't the only one wondering.

He blinked at her, startled. "Sure, yeah. I'm great."

"Wait a minute." Manny used his straw to point at Gary, spraying droplets of soda. "If he's not a superhero, why's he still going around saving people? Dr. Dodgson made me promise to take a break."

"I can't exactly do that," Gary said. There wasn't a trace of the crankiness Toni had come to expect from him on that point when he was tired, but he did sound…off. Resigned, maybe.

Manny's brow furrowed in confusion, then cleared as he looked around the table. "Oh, I get it. You're the real thing. That's why you need sidekicks. You just don't have a superhero name yet."

Gary sat up straight. In the dim light of the bar, it was hard to tell, but he looked a little pale. "No sidekicks, Manny. I told you. Sidekicks get hurt, they get kidnapped, they die."

What was going through his head? Toni caught and held his gaze, but she couldn't quite read it. "Good thing we're not your sidekicks, then." 

"Yeah, 'cause you're my--uh--"

"Friends," Marissa finished decisively.

Gary nodded. "Sure, friends."

Toni wasn't sure now was the time to point out that she and Gary were a hell of a lot more than friends, but from the steady way he looked at her, maybe she didn't need to. Still, she wanted to know what was going on; she was used to being able to read a room. She drained the last swallow of chardonnay and held her glass out to him. "Refill?"

"You bet." He picked up Marissa's glass, too, and stood. 

To Toni's relief, so did Manny. "I'm going to have some more fries before Drew comes to pick me up. That's my son. Great kid."

Toni nodded. "So I've heard." She waited until they were out of earshot, then turned to Marissa. "How's he doing, really?"

"I take it you don't mean Manny?" With no wine glass to toy with, her fingers moved to the coaster, tracing beads of condensation around the edges. "I think he's doing as well as he can, but I wish he'd talk more about what happened. He went to one counseling session with Dr. Dodgson last week, but as far as I know, he hasn't gone back. He says he's too busy, says he's over it. Just like he always does." She shook her head. "It all hit him harder than he realizes."

"He's been in trouble before." Toni glanced over at the bar, where AJ was chatting with Gary, Manny, and a young man in a DePaul hoodie. Drew Cabrerra. "There was that whole thing with Scanlon, and that wasn't the first time he was a suspect, or didn't change a story for the better. This certainly wasn't the first time he ended up in the hospital because of the paper."

"What happened with Jeremiah Mason was different," Marissa said, quiet and fierce. "It was a low point, the lowest point he's had with the paper, and they used it against him. They brought it all back, but even more, I think he's uncomfortable because you know about it now."

What did she have to do with this? "I've known about it for a long time."

"He didn't realize that," Marissa pointed out. "On top of everything else, I think it makes it harder for him to move past it. He thinks you hung the moon, you know, that you're the best cop in the city. To have you know that he's not perfect—like I said, he's always worried people will leave him at the first excuse. I think what happened with Jeremiah is a big part of what scared Erica off."

"He doesn't have to worry about that with me," Toni assured her. 

"Does he know that?"

"Do I know what?" Gary appeared at the table, two wine glasses and a tumbler clutched precariously in his hands. She'd totally missed his approach.

"How to wait tables. Which you obviously don't." Toni took one of the glasses, which was tilted and dribbling wine, and untangled it from his fingers. For as long as she'd known him, she still felt a tingle run through her palm and up her arm when their hands touched. "How did you ever end up running a bar?"

"Oh, you know—just kind of fell into it. Sometimes I do more owning than running, but luckily I have good people around to help." He handed the other wine glass to Marissa and sat, looking between them as he sipped at the tumbler. Scotch, from the smell of it, and not the cheap stuff. He almost always went for beer, so this seemed to forebode something serious.

Or forestall it, she thought, as he turned the talk to the O'Reardon case, and then to Marissa's test. They were all three of them avoiding the elephant in the room, as if it wasn't sitting right in the middle of their table in all its fat, tusked glory. Toni slowed down with her second glass of wine. She had a feeling she'd need her wits about her for the rest of the night, however it ended.

When Manny and Drew said good-night, Marissa stood up. She'd stopped trying to hide her yawns half an hour ago. "I'm going home, too. Long day."

"Want a ride?" Gary asked.

"From you, after two glasses of Glenlivet?" She grinned and picked up Reilly's harness. "Nope. We'll be just fine on the L. Bye, Toni."

"The hell you will." Gary was up in a shot. "We'll find someone to drive you home."

"The L is perfectly safe. Check the paper. There won't be anything."

"I already did. It's gonna rain. Hey, Lucas." He grabbed the arm of a passing busboy, who had to juggle a tray full of empty glasses to keep it from spilling. "I want you to drive Marissa home, okay? The van keys are—"

"On the hook in your office." Lucas grinned affably. "Got it boss. You ready now, Ms. Clark?" 

Marissa pursed her lips but nodded, and the kid swerved off to the kitchen. She turned toward Toni, a "what did I tell you?" expression on her face. Toni just wasn't sure which part she meant. "Come by again soon?" 

"Will do," Toni said.

Marissa started off toward the office. Gary darted a look at Toni. "Be right back." 

For once, he was true to his word; whatever he'd wanted to say to Marissa, or, more likely, whatever she'd had to tell him, he was back at the table before Toni finished her wine. Instead of sitting down, though, he looked around the still-busy bar, then back at her. "Want to take a walk?"

"I thought you said it was going to rain."

He pulled the paper out from the interior pocket of his jacket and turned a couple pages. Was he serious? "Not for another few hours."

Toni shook her head. "You are—" She broke off, not sure how to finish that, especially after what Marissa had told her. What she did know was that another glass of wine wasn't going to help this time. "Sure. I could stand to clear my head."

Out in the foyer, he held her coat for her. "This is new, isn't it? What color is that?"

She tried to remember what the saleswoman had called it. "Raspberry? Boysenberry? Some kind of berry." All she knew was, the last grey-sky day they'd had, when the wind had taken half the leaves off the trees, she'd walked into Marshall Fields on her lunch break looking for something that wasn't cop khaki or office worker black. Now that she'd spent a couple years in Chicago, she knew she'd need some color to get her through the winter.

"Whatever berry it is, it looks good on you." He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she belted the coat, his fingers lingering in the spot between her jaw and her neck. Was that what this walk was about? Why he'd needed the Scotch? She gave him a rueful smile and pulled the door open.

Toni set a brisk pace—faster than he probably wanted—as she took them across the Wells Street Bridge, then east on Wacker along the river. Her ankle had finally stopped twinging when it took weight, and it felt good to move without thinking through each and every step. They didn't say much. She'd had enough small talk and didn't know where to start with the big stuff. Gary didn't seem to either. Though it wasn't raining yet, there was a blustery wind off the lake that shimmered the lights at the highest levels of the skyscrapers and made Toni wish she'd brought gloves and a hat. She stopped under a streetlight to flip up her collar against the cold, but Gary did it for her. His knuckles skimmed the edge of her jaw, giving her goosebumps that had nothing to do with the air temperature.

"Thanks." She started to take a step back, but he didn't let go of her collar.

"You're welcome." For the tiniest fraction of a second, his gaze flicked over her shoulder, across the river. Then he pulled her in, leaned down, and kissed her. It started out gentle, but before she could even get her hands on him or take a breath that wasn't his, he'd sucked her lower lip between his in a mess of a kiss, grabbed her upper arms, and pushed her up against the cement railing that overlooked the river. He kissed her like he was drowning, desperate--like he was still falling in the dark.

Despite the fire that ran from the crown of her head to her toes, the overwhelming need to respond to his urgency, Toni knew he needed something else more. She brought a palm up against his chest and gave a little push.

He stepped back, his expression wounded. "Sorry." It was almost a gasp, and Toni didn't blame him. She was feeling a little breathless herself. "It's been a long time, and I thought you wanted—"

"I know." She slipped her hand down to catch his and give it a squeeze. "And I do."

"But?" This time, when he looked over her shoulder, she followed his gaze to the low, rectangular building on the other side of the river. The lettering that spelled out "Chicago Sun Times" glowed, the same bright yellow as a stoplight.

"Does he know that?" Marissa had asked. The truth was, there were a lot of things Gary didn't know. She pulled away from him and turned to the railing. The wind blew a few drops in her face that might have come from the river, or might have been rain. She couldn't make out the clock on the Wrigley Building, but it must have been later than she realized. There wasn't anybody else walking along the street; for that matter, there were hardly any cars. It felt like they were the only people in the whole city. Like all their responsibilities had retreated, leaving them to deal with their ghosts. Plural. They both had them.

Gary shifted closer, so their shoulders were touching. "Toni?"

"Carson Styles," she said quietly.

"What's that?"

"Who." She half-turned to face him, resting one elbow on the railing. More drops hit her; this was definitely the beginning of the rain. Despite the cold, she was glad for the drizzle, gladder still for the dark. They made it easier to face him and confess. "Back when I was with the Marshals, my second year on the job."

His eyes crinkled, just for a second. "So he's an ex-boyfriend?"

She snorted. "Hardly. He's a not-so-ex-killer." Gary's grin left as quick as it had come. She took a deep breath, bracing herself. She hadn't told anyone at CPD this, not even Paul; she'd never even told her brothers. "Styles was convicted of racketeering for shaking down small businesses for protection money on behalf of a drug lord in Miami. Guy named Gonzalez. The police there had evidence tying Styles to the murder of a bodega owner, but he made a deal with the Feds to give up the drug dealer in return for dropping the murder charges."

Gary ran a hand along his jaw, but all he said was, "Sounds like a real prince."

Toni tilted her head, remembering the way Styles had strutted around in his orange prison jumpsuit, even handcuffed. "He thought he was. I was part of the transfer team taking him to a prison in Arizona. That was another bonus his lawyer had picked up for him, to get him out of Gonzalez's reach. He spent the whole trip yabbering at us about how Gonzalez was going to send assassins after him. He gave us enough details that we started to wonder if it was true and we—no, _I_ —agreed to a detour, this side road through the desert outside Safford."

She paused, tracing a circle on the wide railing. Funny how easily it all came out, when she'd hadn't told the whole story to anyone but herself since it had happened. Gary watched her, his eyes slightly narrowed as if the drizzle put her out of focus. Maybe it was her story that was doing it.

"It was my first time taking lead on a transfer. I didn't see how it could go wrong. It wasn't as if he picked out the detour route. I did, out of at least four possibilities. Maybe whoever was helping Styles—we think it was one of Gonzalez's rivals—had people ready at every possible detour. I never should have agreed, but at that point I just wanted to shut him the hell up." She shrugged. "Maybe he knew how his chatter would wear on me, too. I don't exactly have a reputation for patience." Was that a slight crinkling around his eyes? Probably her imagination. He'd barely moved since she'd started talking, not even to blink the raindrops off his eyelashes.

"There was an ambush waiting for us. They shot out the tires, critically wounded both the other members of my team. Handcuffed me to a side mirror before I could get my gun out. I was useless." She swallowed against a sudden dryness in her throat, against the taste of sand and failure, against the memory of Styles taunting her as he'd slammed her against the van and cuffed her to it. "By the time help got to us, Styles was out of the country. He went to Burma, where the US can't extradite him. As far as I know he's still enforcing for whoever the hell ambushed us."

"Toni." Gary's voice was nearly as hoarse as it had been up on the roof. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known—"

She held up a hand. "Don't, okay? I've heard every excuse. Came up with most of them myself. There was every reason to believe Gonzalez would try to kill Styles. We couldn't have known they were waiting. That Styles had other allies. They got us in the worst possible location. Blah, blah, blah." She sighed. "It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. We all survived, and in the long run, it didn't affect my career." She hadn't let it. After Styles, she'd put in more hours on the gun range, taken extra precautions with her assignments. Brought ear plugs along on every transfer. "Everyone told me I wasn't to blame. But it boiled down to me. It was my decision that got two of my colleagues wounded. My choice set Styles free." Gary hadn't looked away, not once, so she said the rest, the hardest part of all. The thing that had haunted her for the hours she'd spent handcuffed to the van, and for years after. "That bodega owner was a single father with three little kids. God only knows what happened to them."

"You didn't make that deal," he said quickly.

"And you didn't start the fire that killed Jeremiah Mason."

He pulled back. "That's different. He _fell_."

"I know." She reached for his hand. Even in the wet and cold, the touch spread warmth though her. "Gary, I _know_. Failures are part of the lives we've chosen. Nobody bats a thousand in this, that's part of the deal. All we can do is pick ourselves up and try not to make the same mistakes twice." She searched his eyes, trying to decide if any of the blame she saw there was for her. "Now that you know about Styles, do you think any less of me?"

He finally blinked. "No, of course not." 

"And I don't think any less of you because of what happened to Jeremiah Mason." He tried to look away, back at the damn newspaper building, but she tugged at his hand, willing him to believe. "Or Frank Scanlon or anyone else, for that matter. I don't now, and I certainly didn't a year and a half ago when I read the report about the fire in your file."

"You—" He caught his breath. His eyes darted back and forth the tiniest bit, as if he was searching her face for any sign of a lie, any hint of blame. "You knew about Jeremiah?"

"Well, not the paper part. Not why you were there. But the rest, yes. You think I wasn't going to get the goods on this weirdo who kept showing up in my life the first chance I got?" She softened "weirdo" with a faint smile. "Once I found the report on the fire in your file, I got the whole story out of Paul." That was back when Gary Hobson had been the shared mystery between them; the one that intrigued her and pissed Paul off. They'd both moved on. "Who, by the way, was so angry at Feldman and Charles that he had to excuse himself from questioning them or risk another reprimand."

Gary looked utterly baffled. "Why?" 

"Hard to believe, isn't it? If you didn't know better, you'd think he respects you or something." She ran a thumb over his knuckle. He looked down at their joined hands as if he didn't understand that, either. "I don't know the name, but I guarantee you Paul has a Jeremiah Mason or a Carson Styles on his ledger. We all do. And we all keep going anyway."

He worked his jaw for a moment. "I thought I knew how to do that. I was over what happened to Jeremiah, but this wasn't just the drugs, was it? That whole thing, it's not--" He glanced over her shoulder at the damn Sun-Times building. "It'll keep coming back."

"Not like this time." Not if she had anything to say about it. "But yes, it will come back. I still have nightmares about Styles." He lurched as if he'd been hit. Had he had anything but nightmares the past few weeks? "You too, huh?"

"How do I stop them?"

Closing the distance between them, she tilted her head up to meet his shadowed gaze. "Give up on trying to be a superhero, for one thing. I don't want to see you wearing any capes or masks. Not even a Superman t-shirt." She put a hand on his upper arm, feeling his muscles tense through the leather jacket—and let herself grin. All of a sudden, she didn't want him wearing anything at all.

Maybe he guessed what she was thinking, because the edge of fear melted out of his expression. "No capes, no masks. Anything else?"

"To stop the nightmares?" She moved her hand behind his neck, pulled his head close to hers so he'd know _exactly_ what she was thinking. "Don't have them alone."

If this kiss was a mess, it was both their faults. She needed it as much as he did—needed to be warm and breathless and tangled together. He cupped her face in his hands, slipped one down to her neck, then lower, pushing her coat and shirt to the side so her shoulder was exposed to the rain. She gasped at the cold and he started back.

"No, you idiot, don't stop." She pulled his head down to her shoulder; he dropped a kiss on it, then turned his face into her neck.

"I don't wanna stop." His voice, deep and slurred, sent vibrations right through her. "Which is kind of the point. It won't look good on your record if we get busted for doing the stuff I want to do with you out on the street." He lifted his head and glanced over to the side, to the cement balustrades and the river below. "Plus, I don't know about this railing. Got a long history of falling, you and me."

Toni touched his cheek. "Yeah, we do. But it isn't all bad." A gust of wind blew rain between them, making her shiver, and she couldn't help but laugh. "'Not for another few hours,' my ass. See what I mean? Not even your magic paper is perfect." 

"I'm starting to get it." The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened. He adjusted her coat, popped up the collar. "Let's go home and try this nightmare cure of yours."

By the time they made it to McGinty's, the drizzle had turned into a downpour and they were both soaked. Gary pulled her away from the front door, around the corner. "Maybe we shouldn't go through the bar."

She pushed away the wet hair clinging to her face. "What, you think this look is bad for business?"

"No, but this might be." With one step, he backed her against the rough brick and bent over her, sheltering her from the rain as he kissed her—open-mouthed and hungry, one hand behind her neck to press them even closer together. This kiss didn't worry her like the first one had. It came from solid ground. "Come on," he half-growled, taking her hand and leading her to the back alley. She felt like a kid, lightheaded and silly and sneaking up the fire escape, until she realized that the higher they climbed, the more his hand tightened around hers. 

He didn't let go until he'd opened the window and climbed through. He turned to help her inside, pulled her in for another kiss that wasn't enough. She unzipped his bomber; he fumbled with the belt and buttons of her coat. "I should get towels," he said as their coats landed on the floor. But he pushed her hair off her goosepimpled shoulders and went to work on her shirt buttons instead, dropping light kisses on her neck. 

"Forget towels." Toni was about to forget her damn name. She pushed her hands up under his shirt, then under his t-shirt, because it wasn't like the guy could dress in less than three layers. So Chicago. She ran her hands over his abs, then down to the waistband of his jeans, reveling in the heat of his skin.

"Toni." He breathed her name as if it was a release. As if he was finally home. But so was someone else; a loud mewling from the couch made them jump apart.

Gary let out a stream of curse words that she never would have suspected he could string together. He scooped up the cat and stomped to the door, shirttail flapping behind him. Kind of like a cape.

Alone in the teeth-chattering cold, Toni went and sat down on the bed. By the time Gary'd dumped his cat onto the landing, told it off, and shut the door, she'd kicked off her boots, peeled out of her wet jeans, and crawled between the sheets. The cozy flannel was almost better than—no, wait, it wasn't.

Gary turned from the door and looked toward the window. She saw a jolt of panic run through his body when he didn't see her there. "Hey," she called, and even in the dim light she could see the relief on his face when he spun around and saw her, as if he'd been worried she'd gone out the open window. Nothing but nightmares, Toni thought. For two solid weeks. She could fix that.

He closed the window, stripped down to his boxers, and crawled into bed next to her. The whole process took roughly seven lifetimes by Toni's count. He reached for her, then hesitated, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. "You sure this'll work?" he asked, only half-teasing.

"Come here, Superman." She hooked her leg over his and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close. "I'll teach you to fly."


End file.
